Paws
by Ginger Conspiracies
Summary: AU A box of weirdly coloured kittens appear on Katie's lawn a day before her 17th birthday, and she takes them in thanks to begging from her best friend, only to soon realise they aren't the innocent little furballs that she expected... Rated T for Hidan and my OC's excessive swearing. Possible DeidaraXOC {BEING REWRITTEN, PLEASE DO NOT READ UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE}
1. Chapter One: The Cardboard Prison

_A/N: Hey guys, first chapter of my latest fanfic, Paws. Terrible title, I know, but I tried, honestly. It was between that and 'Surprise!', suggested by my little cousin._

_Anywho, on to the story. Enjoy!_

_Rated T for Hidan's, Katie's and Melissa's excessive swearing._

**_Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, would I be writing fanfiction?_**

**-x-**

"Fuck me, my head hurts. What the fuck happened?"

Hidan peeled open his eyes to reveal almost total darkness. He could see only himself, some unmoving lumps nearby, and the soggy brown cardboard that made up the walls of wherever he and the lumps had appeared. He assumed they were the other unconscious members of the Akatsuki, and ignored them for the meantime. He rubbed his head and began to sit up. When he was fully upright, he had the nagging feeling that there was something wrong with his situation. He slowly raised his hand in front of his face, and his resulting scream at what he saw could have woke the dead.

"HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? I'VE GOT PAWS!" he shrieked.

His shout brought Itachi, who was nearby, out of his peaceful unconsciousness.

"Shut up Hidan, I'm trying to sleep," he said, in his usual emotionless tone.

"Itachi! I'm a cat! A fucking _cat_!" Hidan yelled, his tail whipping wildly in his distress.

Sighing, Itachi opened his eyes and glared straight at Hidan. Even in the dark, Hidan could feel the waves of killer intent rolling off the Uchiha and being directed straight at him.

"If you don't be quiet right now and stop making up idiotic stories about you being a feline, Hidan, the only thing you'll be seeing for the next three days is my Tsukuyomi, never mind your 'paws'."

Hidan gulped, but, being the idiot with no sense of impending doom that he is, carried on regardless.

"Listen Uchiha, I really am a cat! I've got paws, and fur, and I think I've even got a fucking tail!" he snapped. "I think I'd know if I was fucking lying."

"I warned you," Itachi sighed, before swiftly turning his head to the direction of Hidan's voice and activating his Sharingan.

"**Tsukuyomi!**"

"..."

"Uh, Itachi? You're either fucking blind already, or your Mangekyo isn't working," Hidan snickered.

"What?" Itachi sat up and brought his hands to his face, but to his dismay, he realised they weren't hands, but silky black paws, and the rest of his body was covered in the same glossy, ebony fur. To make his predicament even worse, Hidan was right; his Sharingan wouldn't activate properly, and he couldn't even sense any trace of chakra in his body.

After composing himself, he calmly said "Hidan, it seems I've been proved wrong."

Hidan tipped his kitten head to the side in confusion. "Huh?"

"...I've become a cat too."

Hidan burst out laughing at this. "HA! The mighty Itachi Uchiha is a helpless little kitty!" he crowed. "I'm so scared of him now; he's going to put me in his Tsukuyomi!"

"I may be a cat, but that now means I have claws, which I could easily use to wipe that grin straight off your whiskered little face," Itachi said, his voice monotone, yet still venomous. "Also, I have noticed that I have no chakra, and seeing as I can't sense any of yours, I think the same applies to you. Therefore, you can't be immortal while in this body, so if you dare say anything like that to me again Hidan, I can, and will, kill you."

_Well, at least I think he can't. Let's hope he doesn't figure out I'm bluffing... _He added mentally.

If he was in his human form, Hidan would have blanched dramatically. Instead, he just froze up completely, and his slitted eyes widened dramatically.

"Shit, you're right! I don't have any chakra!" Hidan panicked. "Who the fuck did this to us?"

Itachi and Hidan both came to the same conclusion.

"_TOBI!_"

Said masked man's ears pricked up at the mention of his name and he looked around for whoever had called him.

"Yes? Who wants Tobi?" he answered with a yawn.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO US?!" roared Hidan, as he leapt onto Tobi's back, claws fully extended.

"Tobi hasn't done anything! What's happened?" he yelped, trying to throw the enraged silver kitten off of his (now punctured) back.

"You know exactly what you've done, you little retard!" Hidan hissed into his ear.

Tobi finally freed himself by rolling over onto the other cat, then scrambled up and tried to run away from Hidan and his sharp claws, and unintentionally bumped into and tripped over a sleeping Pein.

"Ow! Tobi, what's going on here?" he grumbled, blinking groggily to try and adjust to the darkness.

"Tobi doesn't know, Leader-sama! Hidan is chasing Tobi and trying to hurt me!" he whimpered from somewhere behind him.

"That fucking idiot has turned us all into cats!" Hidan growled, jabbing a hooked claw in Tobi's general direction. "I look like more of an idiot than he does normally with all this fucking fur! And we've got no chakra, Itachi has no Sharingan, and I'm mortal!"

"Calm down Hidan. I'm sure it wasn't his fault, and unless you have any proof-"

Pein was interrupted by Hidan breaking out into another bout of laughter.

"What's so funny Hidan?" Itachi asked curiously, as he walked up behind him.

He tried to answer, but just went off into another fit of giggles. Itachi followed Hidan's gaze and saw he was laughing at Pein, who was giving the laughing kitten a strange look. Once he had calmed down a bit, he replied to Itachi.

"Just look at Leader! He's so fucking _ginger_! Even in the dark I can see his fur!" he sniggered.

Pein's whiskers twitched in annoyance, while Itachi just sighed.

"You're laughing that hard because of the colour of my fur, Hidan? Have you forgotten that I am your leader and in your state I could kill you where you stand?" Pein said, with a tone that chilled Hidan to the core.

While their conversation was taking place, the rest of the members of the Akatsuki were beginning to wake up and started to panic when they saw what had happened to them all.

Deidara awoke first, and woke up quite a few of the others when he screamed at the tiny mouths he still had on his front two paws. Surprisingly for him, they screamed back.

Sasori was closest to Deidara, and got the full brunt of his scream(s), so woke up grumbling about how he should stop being such a brat and respect his superiors, before he noticed what he had screamed at. He just smirked and told the blonde that he thought he looked even more like a female as a cat, causing Deidara to attack him, miss, and land on Kisame, who kicked him off before running round looking for Itachi and Samehada.

Zetsu woke up next, his black half snickering at the mayhem.

"**Ha, look at these idiots. We're supposed to be the Akatsuki, and here they are screaming over such a trivial thing. **Oh shut up, you won't be saying that when you realise that we're a cat too," Zetsu argued.

Black Zetsu's amber eye widened and he leaped over to Pein to demand what was going on, much to White Zetsu's annoyance.

Hidan ran over to wake up Kakuzu, who just swatted him away and told him to go and talk to Leader-sama because he didn't care about his problems, until Hidan mentioned that he didn't have any money in his cat form, which almost made the old cheapskate break down crying.

Tobi just sat happily in a corner, enjoying his new-found flexibility and was 'cleaning' himself.

The last to wake up was Konan, who took one look at her bright blue fur and passed out again, causing everyone else to stop what they were doing and go over to find out what the faint _thud_ was.

Pein tried to wake her up by nudging her gently with a paw, but gave up with a sigh a few seconds later, deciding she needed to recover from the shock first.

He could _not_ be dealing with a hysterical female at the moment.

He took advantage of the fact that the rest of the kittens were distracted from their bickering, so got all of their attention and decided to take authority and make a plan to keep them alive and get them back into their human forms because as Hidan had said to Itachi, they were currently all just helpless little kittens.

"I'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that we need to make a plan if we are to survive in these bodies," he stated. "The most important things are as follows: we must not make it obvious to anyone who we really are, as we are still wanted criminals, in case any of you had forgotten," He shot a pointed glare at Hidan and Tobi, making some of the others laugh a little. "If any of our enemies were to find out about this, they could take advantage of us in our vulnerable states, so I think it is definitely best to keep our identities secret. If we need food and water, we will have to hunt for ourselves and drink from any water source we can find. We will not trust anyone but the people here right now, and we will always stay in at least groups of two to stay safe. Any questions?"

He received a few nods and grunts of agreement before surprisingly, Tobi spoke up.

"Leader-sama, what if somebody makes us into their pets? We're kitties, and some people have them as pets don't they?" he asked.

"Ha, we couldn't be pets. Deidara's mouths would scare the shit out of them," Hidan scoffed, earning a glare from said blonde. "And anyway, if any stupid heathens even try to take us in, I'd fucking skin their ass and sacrifice them to Jashin-sama!"

He was going to continue his rant, but Kakuzu's ears twitched at something he heard from outside, and he clamped a stitched paw over the albino's mouth to shut him up.

"Judging from the sounds I can hear from outside, you're going to be having a sacrifice a lot sooner than expected," he muttered.

The rest of the group fell silent and strained their ears to see what Kakuzu was talking about. It sounded like faint footsteps heading straight towards their cardboard prison.

"No matter who this is, do not blow our cover, or whoever does will suffer serious consequences. Understood?" Pein threatened.

The group all nodded while Kakuzu released Hidan before swiping at him for biting his paw.

**-x-**

**(Outside, First Person: Melissa)**

I'd just started walking up the driveway in front of Katie's house when I saw some random sealed up cardboard box on the lawn. Knowing Katie, I thought she'd either binbagged Demi or got another huge-ass delivery of cosplay shit. She did say she wanted a new Akatsuki cloak...

I went over to check it out and noticed it didn't have any stamps or anything on to say it was mail, and she wouldn't have sealed it up if she'd kicked someone out, it'd 'take too much effort'.

Lazy bitch.

Anyway, back to the box.

I nudged the thing with my foot and almost screamed when it moved. This creepy box actually _moved_.

Not much, but it was just enough to make me officially shit bricks.

I actually did scream a few seconds later though when I heard a scratching noise from inside and a load of meowing. I nearly fell over in shock. Instead, I ran the rest of the garden and almost kicked Katie's door down trying to get in.

Said ginger slammed open the door and sent a death glare my way.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Mel?" she snarled. "It's only 11AM and it sounds like you're already beating the shit out of my house!"

Did I mention Katie isn't much of a morning person?

Hm. Well she's not, if you hadn't already guessed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but listen, that box meowed at me!" I stared daggers at the evil box then, hoping to kill whatever was inside. Probably the spawn of Satan if it dared to scare me like that.

"What? You woke me up at this time just to accuse that innocent cardboard box of being alive?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

"That box isn't fucking innocent! Honestly, I kicked it a little and it moved towards me then meowed," I snapped. "I swear to Jashin that thing is possessed or something."

Katie sighed in exasperation. "Melissa, boxes are inanimate objects. They can't move or talk, never mind _meow_. What's it even doing on my lawn anyway?"

"Exactly! That's why I went over in the first place, it's not mail because I can't see any stamps on it, and the only other thing I could think of was that you'd kicked Demi out, which I kinda doubt, considering you guys have been friends since like, forever."

"Weird," She sighed in defeat, running her fingers through her messy hair. "I guess I'll go check it out then, let me get some boots, I don't want to freeze my toes off looking at some stupid package," she muttered, going back into the hallway and dragging on some random wellies.

While she was struggling with the shoes, I walked back over to the lawn and stared at the now silent box, silently wishing I had a Byakugan to see what freaked me out earlier without having to go any closer.

Katie stomped over then, armed with a knife to cut the tape on the top of the mysterious box and stab its contents if they tried anything on her. Even she looked a bit creeped out by it.

I stepped back a bit as she slowly started to slice the tape, making sure I'd still be able to see inside without getting attacked by the meowing thing from the depths of Hell.

Katie quickly sliced the rest of the way and slowly pried open the top, accidentally blocking my view when it was completely open.

"Are you fucking _kidding _me?" she facepalmed. "This is seriously gonna get annoying."

**-x-**

_A/N: So, thought I'd cut it off there as this will seriously go on far too long if I don't._

_What did you guys think? Tell me your opinions and views on this chapter and what you'd like to happen next in a comment or message :D_

_See you soon!_

_- Ginge x_


	2. Chapter Two: New Names

_A/N: Here's a super long chapter for you guys. I'm hoping to post the next chapter today as well, because IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! :D_

_Yes, Neko is another year older today. The next chapter is birthday-themed, so I thought it'd be awesome to post it on my actual birthday, since I have nothing better to do with my life._

_Anyway, I'll stop with the author's now, and get on with the massive chapter._

_I own Naruto, who else would? _

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person: Katie!)<strong>

I knew my plans for the day were going to be seriously fucked up as soon as I heard what sounded like a pack of rabid dogs trying to destroy my front door.

It turns out it was only Mel, being the annoying bitch that is my best friend.

What _really _made me know my day was going to be messed up was when I opened the door and heard said best friend's terrified ranting about a cardboard box that made cat noises. If I could anime fall without hurting myself, I would have done right there and then.

Eventually I stupidly agreed to go out and open this box that had unfortunately decided to appear on my lawn.

Whatever I expected to find inside was _definitely _not this.

"Are you fucking _kidding _me?" I facepalmed. "This is seriously gonna get annoying."

Inside this box that appeared out of nowhere was a bunch of crazily coloured kittens. A little silver one hissed at me when I looked at it, so I glared back, making it stop and turn around in what looked like a kitten strop.

"What's gonna get- AWWW!"

At that point, Mel decided to run over and hug the living shit out of the nearest kitten, which happened to be one of the smallest there; a red one with brown eyes that currently looked like it was suffocating.

I gently removed the poor animal from her death grip, so she grabbed another one, this time a blonde one with pale blue eyes. Getting over the previous excitement, she only held this one up in front of her and stared at it with a huge grin on her face like she'd just hit oil.

"Oh my Jashin Katie! We have to keep them! They're so _adorable_!" she cooed. I swear the silver one perked up when she said 'Jashin'. "I couldn't live with myself if we left them out here all alone."

"Mel, just look at the colour of these things," I said. "They are definitely not natural cat fur colours."

Just to prove my point, I held up one of the larger ones, a light blue one with some black stripes below it's eyes that looked strangely like gills.

"So? They're just special, that makes them even cuter!" She scratched the head of the blonde one then, which it seemed to enjoy.

"My point is, their old owner probably dyed them, which I'm pretty sure could be classed as abuse. I'm not having some mentally scarred, brightly coloured strays running around my house, pissing on everything I own." I stood up and started to shuffle back towards the front door then, but Mel surprised both me and the kitty she was petting with a rush of speed and stood in front of me with a puppy dog face.

She shoved the cat about an inch from my face and said, "Come on Katie, not even you, the most stubborn bitch in the world, can say no to that little face."

I looked straight at the cat, which looked completely freaked out.

"Well..." I turned around and looked back into the box at the remaining kittens. I gotta admit, they all looked reasonably well behaved even after being trapped in a box for Jashin knows how long, except for the silver one of course.

Looking back at the cat dangling in front of my face, I melted. It had decided to give me one of the most adorable confused looks ever. I couldn't help it; I gave in to the little blonde.

Sighing, I turned back towards the house. "You win, Mel, put the cat back in the box and bring them in."

"YES!" she squealed.

I heard all of the cats hissing with protest at being moved as she picked up the box and practically skipped into the hallway behind me.

I kicked off my boots and walked into the living room, flopping on the sofa as the terrified and annoyed cats were dumped on the carpet in front of me, before being lifted out of their box, one by one.

Even though I'm not a cat lover whatsoever, they were pretty interesting to watch.

I don't mean that in a creepy I-like-to-stare-at-small-animals way, I mean that they were interesting because they didn't act like any other cats I've seen.

They all split off into pairs and most began to cautiously investigate their surroundings, while the others either sat or laid down, mewing at each other, almost like they were talking.

Obviously they weren't, but it would be totally awesome if they were, admit it.

* * *

><p><strong>(Third Person!)<strong>

"**What is this** **place?**"Kisame asked, as he nudged an abandoned DVD with a paw.

"**It seems to be the red haired girl's home****.**" Itachi replied. "**Leader-sama, what is that device? I don't recognise it.**"

He had gestured to the laptop which Katie had grabbed from the coffee table next to her.

"**I'm not sure Itachi, I don't recognise most of the items here.**" Pein said. He then addressed the rest of the Akatsuki. "**Although I highly doubt anything here is dangerous, don't get too close to anything that you aren't familiar with.**"

"**Yes, Leader-sa-**"

The group were interrupted by a loud squeal.

They all turned around to see Tobi lying on his back, getting his belly scratched and purring. The squeal had came from Mel, thanks to the black and orange cat licking her finger.

Deidara and Sasori just sighed at the masked idiot's behaviour, before carrying on exploring the room.

"Katie!"

Katie lifted her gaze off of the screen in front of her to briefly look at the girl who called her, before 'hn'-ing in acknowledgement.

"**Holy fuck, the girl speaks Uchiha!**" Hidan laughed.

"**You're hilarious, Hidan.**" Itachi muttered.

"We have to name them!" Mel exclaimed.

"Are you serious?" Katie said.

"Of course I am! They're our new pets, so we have to name them. I've got some good names too, come on!" she pressed.

"Alright, alright, stop bugging me. What one do you want to name first?"

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person: Katie)<strong>

Mel stopped tickling the striped cat and put it in her lap, starting to stroke its head. The purring increased, and it nuzzled her hand with its nose.

"We've got to name this little guy first." she said. "I think he's the only one that hasn't been mean to me so far."

I looked over at the teeny kitty and I've gotta say, it was one of the stranger looking ones there.

It had black fur all over except for little white paws and an orange face. It was so bright actually looked like it had dunked its head into a tub of radioactive goo or something.

What interested me the most was the thin black line that curled into a spiral on his face. For some strange reason, a picture of a chibi Tobi from Naruto popped into my head.

I shook my head, clearing it of the random image.

"Well I've got no nothing, I'm pretty terrible at naming pets." This was true, the last pet I had was a dog called Fido. "You got anything?"

"Duh, just look at his face! It totally looks like a lollipop, call him that!" she said.

I should've known Mel would say something so dumb and obvious.

I facepalmed. "Mel, you can't call a cat Lollipop, it's cruel."

"Well you haven't got anything better." she pouted.

"Fine. Sorry buddy, you have now been christened Lollipop."

She squealed a quick 'yay' before sticking the poor thing back with the others.

"**Nice name, dickhead.**" Hidan cackled.

"**Thank you Hidan, Tobi likes his name too!**" he cheered.

"**Heh, watch out Hidan, looks like you're next!**" Kisame said.

The silver kitten that hissed at me earlier was Mel's next target, and she picked it up, gently smacking it when it tried to bite her.

If cats could look shocked, that would be how it's done. The face it was pulling was priceless.

"That little bastard hissed at me earlier, so now's my time for revenge." I put on my best intimidating face and had a stare out with the little shit until I could think of a name. "AHA! Let's call him Pussy!"

The cat growled and tried to attack me but Mel smacked him again, releasing him. The rest of the kittens had burst out into what sounded like a kitten version of laughter, while me and Mel just rolled around laughing our asses off at the animal's reaction.

"**Nice name, dickhead!**" Kisame mocked, making the kitties break down laughing again.

"**Not fucking funny, Fish-Face!**" Hidan snarled back, pouncing on the giant blue furball.

"**Cut it out you two!**" Pein snapped.

Mel and I had just finished giggling and were watching the big blue cat and Pussy fighting, until the orange one hissed and they both stopped immediately.

"Weird, it's like that ginger one's their leader," I muttered.

"Yeah. Anyway, let us finish naming!" Mel commanded.

I picked up the fuzzy blue one that Pussy scrapped with. He didn't do much, just looked at me curiously until an evil grin spread across my face.

Then he looked at me like I'd just grown an extra head.

"I've got one." I said. "Jaws!"

"Why?" Mel asked, a look of confusion on her pale face. Jaws meanwhile, just looked pissed off.

"Ugh, I swear you're secretly blonde sometimes." I sighed. I turned the giant kitten around to face her. "Doesn't he remind you of Kisame from Naruto?"

All of the cats stiffened and looked straight at me.

"**Kisame, do you know these two?**" Pein asked in his monotone voice.

"**No, Leader-sama. I've never seen them in my life!**" he replied, looking worried.

"**Then how the fuck does she know your name?**" Hidan demanded.

"**How am I supposed to know?**" Kisame yelled.

"**Perhaps if we listen to their conversations, we might find the answer.**" Itachi suggested.

"Oh yeah, he kinda does! How did you get Jaws from that though?" Mel asked.

I smacked my forehead in frustration. "Because Kisame is a giant shark man! Are you blind, or just stupid?"

Personally I think it's both.

"Don't be mean, it's not my fault I'm not some crazy Akatsuki fangirl like you." Mel pouted.

"Can you blame me? It's an organisation full of hot guys and my favourite fictional female ever." I said. "You'd have to be mad not to love them!"

"**Wait a minute, did she just say Akatsuki, hmm?**" Deidara said.

"**I think she did, brat.**" Sasori replied, looking slightly more interested.

"**Never mind that, she called me Jaws!**" Kisame moaned as he was put down. "**Little bitch, if she knows us like she says, surely she knows I hate being teased about my appearance!**"

"**Quit moaning Jaws. I don't think it can get any worse than Pussy.**" Hidan grumbled.

"_**You never know, let's see what the next victim gets called.**_" Black Zetsu said.

I watched on with amusement at the kittens' faces when Mel picked up her latest target, the ginger one. He had black spots all over his body, and purple eyes.

This one was my favourite so far, us gingers gotta stick together, right?

"I can't think of a name for that one." I said, looking at my tiny twin.

"Me neither. Ooh! What about Dave?" she grinned.

When I was 11, I had a dog called Dave. It's a dumb name, I know, but at the same time it's fucking awesome.

I was so proud when people would ask me what my dog's name was. The looks and comments I would get when I told them were hilarious.

He's this tiny little pug, and he actually still lives with my mum now. She loves his name as much as she loves him.

"Sure, why not?" I laughed. "Only gingers and pugs are epic enough for that name."

"**What kind of a fucking name is Dave?**" Hidan said. "**Can't those stupid bitches come up with any normal names?**"

"Right, how many left now?" I asked.

"Uh, six. Five guys, one girl." I almost facepalmed when Mel had to count them all on her fingers.

She's lucky I love her, or I probably would have killed her for being such a dumbass by now.

"Okay, well let's name the girl first. She's too adorable to be left until last." I said, grabbing the blue haired female. I stared into her amber eyes and absently stroked her, trying to think of a name.

Looking into her eyes, I swear I saw understanding in them, like she knew what we were saying.

I quickly ignored that thought, as I sometimes got that feeling looking at Melissa, but I soon realised that I had to be either extremely hopeful or just insane to think that about her; I mean nobody could act that stupid and be clever. Except Tobi...

Whatever.

"What about Tenshi?" I suggested. I thought it was a sweet name, and she had to be the cutest kitten I'd seen so far, so she didn't deserve anything less.

"Why?" My black haired idiot asked.

"It means 'angel' in Japanese." I explained. "And this cat seriously reminds me of Konan, and the people of Ame call her 'God's Angel' because of those badass paper wings she's got."

The kitten blinked in surprise.

"That makes sense." I knew she had no idea really, she was nodding her head slowly with a blank expression and was only acting like she knew. Idiot.

She was about to decide who her next torture victim would be, but was interrupted by the doorbell.

"I'LL GET IT!" she screamed, jumping up and scurrying to the door.

"What the fuck Mel! There's no need to fucking yell, I'm right next to you, asshole!" I shouted while covering my now hurting ears.

I kinda felt sorry for the cats then, because if I had only got an earache from her squeal, they must have almost died with their sensitive ears.

"Oh hey Matt, come in! We've got some new friends!" she giggled from the hallway.

I picked up the nearest kitten and put him on my stomach and gently stroked his head and down his back. He had the softest, pure black fur that I had ever felt, and when he looked up at me, he shocked me with his bright crimson eyes.

The weird thing about them though was the little black dots around the edge. They really reminded me of the Sharingan for some reason. I guess I am a bit too obsessed with Naruto.

At first he looked a bit alarmed, but soon calmed down when I started petting him. He laid down on me when he was sure that I wouldn't eat him or something, but kept his eyes locked on to mine until Mel skipped into the room, dragging a windswept Matt behind her.

"'Sup Matt." I smiled.

"Hey Kate. What's with all the furballs?" he asked, as he almost tripped over Pussy.

"I found them in that box on her lawn about 20 minutes ago." Mel flopped onto a beanbag opposite me and patted the chair next to her. "Come and sit, boy."

"Cool. Got any names for them yet?" he yawned.

"We've named five so far, five to go." I said, still stroking the red-eyed kitty. "Wanna help?"

"Sure, what one?"

"Umm... The one that Katie's got on her belly." Mel said, pointing.

"Kala." he said immediately. When we gave him weird looks for not talking English, he explained. "It means 'dark' in Hindi."

"Since when could you speak Hindi?" I laughed.

"I can't really, i just know the odd few words from my aunt, she's from India." he flicked his blonde fringe out of his eyes with one hand, and plucked the one with the red fur off of an abandoned cushion with the other.

"Okay then, Kala it is." I looked back at the cat and noticed he was still staring at me. It began to creep me out, so I put him down, where he walked off towards Jaws.

"Can I name another one?" he asked.

"Go for it, I think me and Mel are almost out of ideas anyway." Matt leaned down and seized the black and white cat by the scruff of his neck.

He glared straight at him with his gold eyes.

"_**If he gives us a shitty name like you guys, I'm going to eat him as soon as we get our body back.**_" Black Zetsu growled.

"Well if you've got no names, you won't mind if I call him Zetsu, will you?" he grinned and the cat suddenly stopped growling and just stared.

"Oh no, we are _not _naming these adorable kitties after some Akatsuki guy." Mel laughed.

"Yeah, let's call him Zetsu." I decided.

"But I just said no!" Mel pouted.

"It's my choice. They appeared on _my _lawn, and so they are _mine_. So I'm saying that Zetsu is awesome so I've got no problem with that name." I stuck my tongue out at her when she tried to answer back. "Don't even argue, you know I'm right."

She sighed. "Alright, alright. Only this one though."

"Okay. It's your turn to name anyway, so choose one."

I sat back into the sofa and watched her try and catch the red cat, who was doing a good job of avoiding her.

"HA! Gotcha!" Mel yelled once she'd snatched it up.

Heh. That kinda rhymes...

"Don't you hiss at me, mister!" she scolded. "Anyway, a name for you. Hmm... I know! Tim!"

"Tim?" Matt and I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep. You know, like Tiny Tim!" she giggled. The kitten hissed a bit more before getting launched back into the group.

"**These people are truly sadistic.**" Sasori grumbled as he picked himself up off the carpet.

"Not really, we got a normal name. **Probably because we're better than the rest of you suckers.**" Zetsu snickered.

"**You're no better than us, Zetsu, yeah.** **I bet- Oh shit.**"

Mel lifted up the blonde kitten and plopped him on my stomach. I almost laughed at his expression, he looked terrified and annoyed at the same time, which is fucking hilarious on a cat, trust me.

"How fucking yellow is this kitten?" I snorted. He narrowed his eyes at me and dug a claw into my t-shirt. "Ow! You little fucker, how dare you!"

I threw him off me and was about to hit him with a pillow before Matt stopped me.

"Come on, don't hurt him, he's just a kitten!" he said. "Get your revenge on his name."

"Good idea. Well then, your new name is Fluffy." I grinned.

I got his name thanks to the random tuft of fur covering his left eye. Seeing as the kitty was a guy, I thought that he'd be a bit pissed off with a name so girly. If cats could talk, he would be getting seriously bullied by the rest of the group forever.

"**_FLUFFY_? What the fuck, un!**" Deidara growled. The others all burst out into a chorus of kitten laughter, except for Tobi, who ran over and glomped Deidara.

"**Don't worry, Tobi likes your name Deidara-senpai!**" Tobi said.

"**Get off me, you idiot, hmm!**"

"Finally, the last one!" I sighed. It was fun to name our new pets at first, but now it was just goddamn tiring. It had taken us about half an hour, and I was really bored. "I've got a name for him."

I picked up the last kitten. He was the second largest, just behind Jaws. He had brown fur with little black stripes all over that kinda looked like stitches, and bright green pupil-less eyes. The stripes were what gave me the idea for his name.

"Frank, short for Frankenstein." Mel giggled and Matt just smirked. "He's got all these weird stitch things, so he reminded me of when we had to read the book for that English assignment once."

"Oh yeah! I hated that book." Mel said.

"Same. I think everyone did. I swear our English teacher only gave us it as torture." I agreed. "Anyway, since we've got ten adorable fluffballs in my house, let's take advantage of them."

"EW! Katie's a kitty pedophile!" Mel giggled.

"So what?" I said with a completely straight face.

"Wait- Ugh! What the hell Katie, that's so gross!" she gawked.

"You really need to learn what sarcasm is, Mel." I laughed. "You're so stupid sometimes. I meant take advantage of them _while they're here_, like play with them or just piss them off. We've got nothing better to do."

Matt nodded at my suggestion.

"Phew! You really scared me for a minute! But okay, let's annoy the shit out of them!" she grinned evilly, then looked straight towards Pussy.

"**Fuck.**" Hidan whispered.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Starts off pretty good, gets crappy towards the end. I rushed the end and left out loads of details to cut down the size, sorry._

_Next chapter, Katie's birthday! :D_

_Thought I'd reply to the reviews now. Thanks for all the positive praise and stuff, and to **Suki77**, I agree about it being funny, I almost died laughing imagining Hidan's face when he got called Pussy. **daydreamer1008**, I'm glad someone understands! Most of my friends who read this and CYK didn't get the awesomeness that is the Akatsuki Kitties, and I thought I was alone, lol_

_Also, I'm going to add a random fact about either one of my characters or just something stupid at the end of each chapter now._

_**Random Fact #1: **Katie is based on me, Melissa is based on my only real life friend who understands the epicness of anime, and Matt is based on a guy I met on Skype. They all share our birthdays (not ages) and appearances, except for Matt._

_FINALLY, I would like to say I have a deviantART account now. I'm purpleneko98, so just look me up. I'm putting up my Naruto and other random anime drawings._

_Keep up the reviews, and I'll see you soon! *waves*_


	3. Chapter Three: Birthday Surprise

_A/N: Aww, I'm actually upset that I didn't upload this when I said I would. It just feels weird not uploading on my birthday, but I kinda fell asleep before this got finished, and my stupid laptop is totally fucked up. :(_

_Another thing I'd like to add is R.I.P Whitney Houston. You were a very talented woman, and even though the time in your later life wasn't well spent, you didn't deserve to die so young. _

_Anyway, off the sad subjects, and on to the awesomeness that is Katie's birthday._

_Enjoy!_

_I'm sorry, I lied. I don't own Naruto, or the Akatsuki. *cries*_

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Katie!)<strong>

My birthday sucks.

Every year, it's the same. It never changes.

I stay in bed until whenever I can be arsed getting up, I get up, eat, watch some anime, open some cards from family that I don't even know, bitch with Mel or whoever comes over, then I go to bed. Every single year.

So a pretty average and boring day.

I don't really see the point of it to be honest, except for when Mel comes over. It's kinda fun then. Since Mel and Matt stayed over last night, I was kinda hoping that my day might be different.

Oh, it was different alright.

* * *

><p>"HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!"<p>

Mel ran into my room and leaped on top of me, at first scaring me, then suffocating me.

She must have seriously put on some weight, because I wasn't normally crushed when she did that.

I'm normally just a bit pissed off, but getting crushed made me even worse.

"Ugh! What the fuck Mel, get off me! Too much love... can't... breathe..." I gasped.

"Oh, oops! Sorry Katie!" she shouted.

"Mel, does the phrase 'indoor voice' mean anything to you? You're way too excited. It's only my birthday." I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sat up in bed to see Matt leaning against the doorway, chuckling at our antics. "What are you laughing at, asshole?"

"Good morning to you too, birthday girl." he muttered sarcastically. Bastard. "Did you enjoy your little wake-up call?"

"Of course I did, what seventeen year old girl doesn't like being woken up to a glomp from a hyperactive idiot at half nine in the morning?" I snapped back.

"Hey, don't take it out on me! I told her it wasn't a good idea to wake you up this early." he said, raising his hands up in front of his face in mock defence.

"Damn right it wasn't! I haven't been up this early since we were still in school."

I stretched a bit and threw my hair up into a loose ponytail, before shoving Mel off my bed and climbing out.

"Ow! Katie, you didn't have to throw me off, that's mean." she whimpered from her spot on the floor. "I was only trying to be nice! I just thought that the earlier you get up, the more time you get to spend with your best friends on your birthday!"

"Another reason for me to stay in bed." I hissed. I threw a pillow at her face and stomped off towards my bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me.

It wasn't until I heard a few meows from in front of me that I realised they'd shoved the cats in here, and I'd just woken them up.

I sighed and picked up the large plastic tub they were in, whatever anger I'd had left from before draining away when I looked at their adorable sleepy kitten faces.

They were just too cute to be angry around.

Kicking open the door, I unceremoniously plopped the box down just outside of my bathroom door before grabbing some random jumper and jeans and a towel from my dresser beside the door, then returning to the tiled room to get cleaned up.

Once I was dressed, I threw on a bit of makeup, dried and brushed my hair out and put my hand on the doorknob, about to turn it to go back into my room, but something stopped me.

My seventh sense was trying to tell me something.

My seventh sense is pretty strange. I've got a weird ability to somehow know when Mel or someone equally strange is being weird. It only goes crazy like it was then when the person in question is doing something that would be face-palm worthy. Or so weird that it would mentally scar anyone who sees it for life.

It wasn't as bad as I'd felt it before, so I was guessing it was just a face-palm moment.

If you're wondering what the sixth sense is, it's actually something everyone has, not just me. It's that weird feeling you get when someone's watching you, and if you're daydreaming, you look up and directly at the person looking at you. For me, it's not just a feeling, it's like a sense because I don't get it when people are staring, I get it when people just glance at me. Sometimes it's really annoying, as me and my friends get stared at pretty much all the time for the way we act in public.

I slowly turned the handle on the door, and pulled it open, mentally preparing myself for what disturbing things might be happening in my room.

"What the _fuck_?"

Mel was sat cross-legged on my bed, covered in cats. She was giggling like a maniac and trying to tie tiny ponytails into her feline victims' fur. So far, it looked like she was finished with Fluffy, Jaws, Kala and Pussy. Fluffy's ponytail was on the top of his head, and unlike the others, he seemed to be quite happy with it. Pussy on the other hand looked _livid_. Like so angry that he looked like he would spontaneously combust if he got any more pissed. (_A/N: For any noobs out there, spontaneously combust means randomly explode/set on fire. This can actually happen. Seriously.)_ I honestly have no idea how she managed to get the ponies on him anyway. I thought the rabid little fucker would've clawed her eyes out or eaten her hand if she even attempted to go near him.

Frank started making this weird choking noise, which kind of sounded a bit like laughter; well it would if cats could laugh, I guess. Pussy spun round, growled and leaped on him, starting a literal cat-fight. Lollipop was bopping all the ponytails with his paws, much to the annoyance of the violated kittens. The rest of the group, except for Jaws, were either ignoring the screaming pair or trying to avoid getting their fur styled by a still grinning Mel.

"Oh hey Katie! You like their fur?" she grabbed Fluffy and shoved him in my face. The poor thing must seriously be tired of that by now.

"No, I don't. That's freaking animal cruelty!" I plucked Kala and Jaws from her lap and gently untied the elastic holding their hairstyles in, trying not to hurt them. Once I was finished with them, I took Fluffy as well and undid him.

What I saw when I was about to put him down made me completely freeze in shock, then have a major fangasm shortly after.

"Huh? What's up Katie?" Matt walked over looking both confused and concerned for my mental health.

"The paws! Look at his paws!" I squealed. I all but launched the cats off me before running over to my computer and hurriedly trying to switch it on.

I could see Matt and Mel (who was still covered in the remaining cats, by the way) beside me, looking at the puzzled kitten's paws. Mel screamed so loud that she dropped Fluffy and all the others mewed in shock and jumped off her. She was pretty much vibrating with fangirl love, so I'm not surprised they were terrified.

"Shit Katie! What the fuck are these things?" Matt cried.

"**Deidara, what are they talking about?**" Pein asked.

Deidara blushed lightly and lifted one of his front paws to show his leader. "**I think they've seen my mouths, un. I guess they scared them a bit, you don't really see kittens with mouths on their paws, yeah.**"

"**Hmm. ****That doesn't explain why the red-haired girl ran over to that strange machine so quickly though.**" Kakuzu muttered.

"**Or why the one on the bed is staring at us like that and OH SHIT SHE'S COMING STRAIGHT AT US!** **DUCK!**" Kisame yelled.

The kittens all scattered to escape from Mel's glomp zone. She had pretty much attempted to leap off the bed and land directly on top of the animals. She landed straight on her face, and her arms and legs were sprawled all over the place, twitching from the pain of bellyflopping my wood floor. "Ow."

"Mel! Wait! Leave them alone for a minute! Katie looks like she's on to something!" Matt grabbed both of her arms and put her in a headlock to stop her from trying to latch herself onto to the furballs again.

"B-But... AKATSUKI!" she screamed. "It has to be them! You saw the mouths too! Must... rape... Deidara!"

She carried on struggling to get out of Matt's tight grip and get the cats.

"In case you hadn't noticed, they're still freaking cats! You can't rape a fucking kitten! If you are the Akatsuki, you'll be able to understand me right now. For your own safety, run into the bathroom and hide!" Matt commanded. To all of our disbelief, the entire group of cats blinked and turned around to run into the bathroom.

"Oh.. Shit." he said. "It's like we're in one of those stupid fanfictions!"

My mind was racing at about a hundred miles an hour. Mouths on a blonde kitten, with pale blue eyes and fur over its left eye. Stitch markings on a kitten with brown fur, always fighting with a short-tempered silver one. A black one with red eyes, blue one with gills, ginger one with black piercings, and freaking Zetsu! How didn't I notice it all before! It was so_ obvious_!

I spun around in my chair and logged onto my computer, quickly clicking onto the Internet.

"Mel, do you remember all those stories about the Akatsuki being turned into kitties?" I asked.

"Yeah, I've got some favourited, why?" she replied, panting from her struggles.

I clicked onto the folder that contained Mel's favourites, and sure enough, there were four different Akatsuki Kitty stories in there. I opened them all up on different tabs, and quickly scanned through them.

"If these cats are who we think they are, we need to find a way to change them back. I don't really want the Hidan kitty tearing up my house any longer." I said, clicking print.

* * *

><p><strong>(Third Person, Akatsuki!)<strong>

"**How the fuck do those people know us?**" Hidan yelled.

"**Be quiet Hidan, t****he main issue here isn't how they know us, but how _much_ they know.**" Pein replied. "**They clearly**** know our identities and the organisation we belong to already, so they could possibly know our plans and possibly our weaknesses, and that could cause some serious issues in our conditions.**"

The rest of the group agreed and began muttering between themselves.

"**What are we going to do then, Leader-sama? Should we try and escape, or stay with them?**" Sasori said.

All of the Akatsuki's ears pricked up at the sound of Katie's voice. "If these cats are who we think they are, we need to find a way to change them back. I don't really want the Hidan kitty tearing up my house any longer."

"**I think it would be best if we stayed. They don't seem to want to cause us any harm, except maybe the black haired girl.**" Everyone shuddered at the memory of Mel's attack earlier. "**From what we have just heard, they might be able to help our situation as well, if they find a way to reverse whatever jutsu was used on us."**

**"I agree with Leader-sama." **Itachi chipped in. **"We are new to this world, and if we were left like this to fend for ourselves, it could lead to all kinds of danger. At least here we have a roof over our heads, and people with money and food to care for us."**

**"I don't want to be fucking taken care of!" **Hidan huffed. **"We can handle ourselves."**

**"Hidan, if you want to be a stubborn bastard like we all know you are, then go straight ahead, un." **Deidara growled. **"Take a look around, everyone else agrees with these guys, so we're staying right here, yeah."**

The silver haired kitten huffed even more. **"Huh. Whatever. And I'm not a stubborn bastard, so shut the fuck up, Fluffy!"**

Everyone else zoned out to the impending argument, but quickly snapped out of it to the sound of the door slowly opening. Katie stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall with a smirk on her face.

"So, you're the Akatsuki?" she laughed. "Pein, get your ass over here."

Pein growled but complied. Katie crouched down and lifted him up gently to look at his face. After about a minute of staring, she nodded to herself, put him back down, did a 180 and shut the door behind her.

**"Uh... Does anyone know what just happened here?" **Kisame asked.

**"I have a feeling it would be better if we didn't waste our brain cells trying to figure out the things these people do." **Kakuzu droned. **"It seems as if it would just confuse us further."**

**"For once, I agree with the tight-ass." **Hidan sweatdropped.

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Katie!)<strong>

"Yup, it's definitely them." I closed my eyes and braced myself for the predictable fangirl squeal from Mel, but surprisingly, it never came. I opened my eyes again and sighed when I understood the only reason why I didn't hear anything was because Matt was pinning her down on the carpet with her mouth buried in a pillow. I could see her excitement sparkling in her eyes though, so I walked over to the printer to spare her the misery of waiting. I picked up the papers that it had spat out, and shuffled through them, separating them into three groups. I threw a pile at Mel, hitting her square in the face, another at Matt, and kept the last for myself.

"How are you sure?" Matt questioned.

I face-palmed. "How dumb can you get, Matt?" I began counting the reasons off on my fingers. "One, Deidara's mouths. Two, Pein's Rinnegan. I know that shit is real, I just went and checked, and it's as awesome as it is in the anime. Three, they're clearly more intelligent than your average abused strays. They followed your order to get in the bathroom, right? Finally, their appearances are just too genuine. Not even kitty cosplayers could get their fur colours and patterns that spot on."

He and Mel nodded slowly in understanding. I walked over to the bathroom door to lock it, and allowed Matt to release Mel when I knew it was safe for the criminal cats. She rolled onto her back and took in a deep breath, obviously glad she could breathe again. She glared daggers at Matt.

"What the fuck, you douchebag!" she yelled, pointing an accusing finger at his face. "You almost killed me!"

"Don't exaggerate, I only stuck your face in a pillow." he dismissed her statement by pushing her finger away.

"I'm not on any sides here, but that is a way to smother people, so she has a point." I added in with a small smirk. It's always fun to correct him when he thinks he's right. He gets so pissed off.

He grunted and folded his arms. "Whatever. Anyway, what are these papers you threw at us?"

I blinked as I remembered them. "Oh those? They're some Akatsuki Kitty fanfics that I found in Mel's favourites. It's our job to find a way to reverse whatever happened. There's got to be something in one of these. So yeah, flip through them and write down any cures you can find. We can try them out once we've got a good list."

The other occupants of my bedroom nodded and immediately started reading, grabbing pens from my bedside table and scribbling down what they had found on separate sheets of paper I had included. Fifteen minutes and three sheets of paper later, we were finished.

"Right, show me what you've got." I said, holding up my own sheet. "I've got hot water and drinking lemon juice. What about you guys?"

Mel held read hers out. "Cold water and eating sugar."

Matt lifted his up. "Vinegar and eating chilli powder."

"Okay, let's get the furballs out and test the theories. I'll take Itachi, Hidan, Pein and Deidara. Mel takes Kakuzu, Konan and Zetsu. Matt takes Kisame, Tobi and Sasori. Mel, no raping the kittens, just grab them and go." She pouted at this. "I don't think we'll need to tell them what's going on, they can probably hear what we're saying. They already had ninja hearing, so the cat ears must have made it even better."

The three of us got up from where we were sat and I unlocked the door. We peeked inside to see the group huddled in a corner, and all of their eyes widened in fear when they noticed Mel standing there.

I laughed out loud at their cuteness.

I can't believe I thought that the criminals in front of me were cute.

Well, I am slightly insane, so it's to be expected really.

"Don't worry, Mel isn't here to eat you." I chuckled, earning myself another glare from said moron. "We've found some different ways to try and turn you guys back to normal, so we've split you into groups to test them."

I informed them of who they would be following and where they would be going, before sitting down with my legs sprawled either side of me. Mel and Matt left with their kittens and walked off to where they were assigned to go. I noticed the strange looks I was getting off Hidan and Deidara for my weird position.

Sighing, I explained. "Before you even try and ask, I've been born with some weird thing wrong with my hips, so I can't cross my legs, and I sit in the opposite way, like this. It offends me when people make fun of it or the way I walk, so don't even try that unless you want to lose your ability to bear children."

All of the kittens nodded quickly in horror. I had to suppress a snort of laughter at Pein's face when he was scared. I never thought I'd see the badass leader of the Akatsuki look so adorable.

I rubbed my hands together and looked over my victims. "So, let's start with the hot water, shall we?"

I turned the tap on the bath to 'hot' and waited for it to heat up to a suitable temperature.

"Hop in, kitties. The water shouldn't be too hot for you, just good enough to be classed as hot."

They followed my instructions and let the water soak into the fur on their legs. I waited for the puff of smoke to indicate their transformation, and sighed when nothing happened. I spread a towel out on the floor and told them to jump out. I heard a mew of disappointment come from the two more emotional members.

"Ah, shut up, you impatient bastards. I'm sure we'll eventually find a way. Let's get you dried off."

I grabbed Itachi and started drying his fur with the towel. He looked shocked at first but started to relax into it, almost letting out a purr of contentment.

I was proved wrong when I thought there wasn't anything cuter than Pein the Kitty's scared face. Itachi just took the cake.

I dried off Pein and Deidara, Pein when I got his nod of approval, and Deidara because I knew he wouldn't want his fur to go frizzy.

If fur could get frizzy.

Whatever.

Hidan looked at me expectantly.

I raised an eyebrow and stared back at him.

"Wait, you expect me to dry you as well?" I snorted. "No way. You're the bitch that hissed at me when I first looked at you. You can suffer. Oh and no, I didn't completely get my revenge with the name Pussy. You have many more days of torture to come." He gulped and backed off at my evil grin. I looked back down at my list. "Lemon juice. If I remember right, Mel keeps some in one of these drawers..."

**"Why would someone keep lemon juice in the bathroom, un?" **Deidara asked Itachi.

**"I have no idea. I've already learned not to be surprised by the things they do now." **He replied. The kittens nodded in agreement.

"I bet you're thinking she's crazy keeping that stuff in my bathroom, but it's because it's apparently some good cleanser or something. The acid gets rid of the dirt." I said, rooting through the top drawer of my bathroom cabinet. I pulled out a small yellow lemon shaped bottle. "Aha! Here it is! One of you get over here and stick your tongue out."

**"Hidan, you do it. You're immortal, so it can't kill you, un." **Deidara said.

**"Yes, that would be the best idea.****" **Pein nodded.

**"Ugh. You would agree to me being the one to fucking suffer, fucking Pein-in-the-ass..." **Hidan grumbled as he walked over and reluctantly stuck out his tongue.

Just as I was about to drop a tiny bit into his mouth, I heard a _poof_ and a squeal of delight along with some clapping from the direction of the bathroom downstairs.

"It worked!" Mel screamed. "Ew! Zetsu, put a freaking towel on!"

I face-palmed, and Hidan sighed in relief. It seemed like he hated lemon juice or something. I'd keep that in mind for later...

Kukukukuku...

"Which one did?" I heard Matt holler.

"Cold water!" she yelled back.

"Cool! I'll throw some water on these guys then, thanks Mel!" he shouted. His group mewed in surprise.

"Will you guys shut the fuck up already? Turn your kitties back and get them back up here!" I roared.

"Yes, mother..." they both grumbled sarcastically. I rolled my eyes as a series of five other poofs could be heard.

I switched the 'hot' tap off and switched on the 'cold' one.

"You know what to do. You're all guys, so don't be shy, and the towels are in a pile here when you need them. I'll go in there so I don't have my innocence taken from seeing you four naked." I gestured to the towels and the bath and walked out, shutting the door.

Sighing, I flopped on to my bed. I looked at my watch.

Still only 10:15. Ugh.

Freaking idiot waking me up...

I'll get her back for that.

A few more poofs came from my bathroom, so I prepared myself for what I would see.

Hearing loud footsteps thundering up the stairs, I sat up and leaned on my headboard, knees up to my chest. Mel skipped into the room first, her group of people wrapped in towels trailing behind her, or in Konan's case, my bath robe. Matt came in closely after, also followed by his group. I motioned for Mel and Matt to join me on the bed, and both fell down on the foot of the bed. The Akatsuki just stood by the door, looking awkward until I pointed in front of my bed and told them to stand there. They followed my orders and stood there instead, looking even more awkward.

The door of my bathroom slammed open and Hidan stomped in, arms folded across his chest, glaring at me. Pein had his hand over his face and was shaking his head at the Jashinist's tantrum. Deidara and Itachi followed behind, both just looking curiously around to find their partners to stand next to. Eventually, the entire gang was stood in front of us in a line next to their respective partners, only dressed in towels, staring expectantly at us three on the bed. I stared straight back at them, thinking of what to say.

I sighed and decided to break the ice. Taking my hair out of it's ponytail, I shook my head around a bit to help the kinks fall out and leaned back into my pillows, letting my hair spread out over it, and focused my gaze back on the wonderful men in front of me.

"So... You're really the Akatsuki, huh?"

Before anyone could respond, I started laughing quietly to myself. It soon turned into a full-blown giggling fit, with me sprawled over my bedsheets laughing my ass off.

Not one of those psycho type of laughs you get when you have an evil idea or something, but a genuinely happy one. I just couldn't believe what was happening.

I mean, who else gets to wake up on their 17th birthday and see nine hot, half naked fictional males in their bedroom?

Ah, I love my life sometimes.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Hehehehehe._

_Was it worth the wait?_

_So, the Akatsuki have been brought back to their human forms. Sorry if this seems a bit rushed, but I couldn't think of many things to do to terrorise them as kittens. It would just make the story much more interesting to make them humans, and I have lots of plans for them now. :)_

_I think that either next chapter or the one after it will start going onto my own plotline, for now it's just introductions and settling in, so bear (bare?) with me._

_Thanks for the reviews, I love reading them, it's really entertaining to see what you think about my stories._

_**Random fact #2: **Katie is about 5' 6", Mel is about 5' 2", and Matt is about 5' 9". I know that the majority of the Akatsuki is smaller than these three, so I'm going to pretend that they're taller than they actually are. I'll include their heights in another random fact if I can't find anything better to write. Also, I've converted most of my buddies to the Way of the Otaku. YES! What an acheivement._

_Next update due on 24/03/12, don't judge me if I'm late or anything, I try my best :)_

_Please review or favourite or whatever you want to do, I know it's clichéd, but it honestly gives me the motivation to keep writing. I mean, what's the point of writing if nobody likes it? :)_

_See you next time! :D_


	4. Chapter Four: Fangirls

_A/N: I just noticed how these author's are starting to sound like the stupid sidebars you get in a few shojo manga. _

_So basically I'm just telling loads of uninteresting life stories._

_Oh well, they're staying. I've not got much else to talk about otherwise._

_So suck it up, bitches._

_Hope this chapter doesn't suck too much, especially since it's quite an important chapter. You know, introductions, how the fuck they got in our world in the first place, yadda yadda yadda._

_For those people who think this is just far too close to CYK, I know, I know, but Katie and Melissa are based on me and my friend in real life, not Alice and Kathryn (even though there's some __**really **__creepy similarities) and she helps me with some of the plot ideas, I don't actually copy the original story. There should be a bit of a storyline coming along soon, just gotta get through with the introductions and terrorise Hidan a bit longer. :)_

_And on to the story. For those people who love long chapters, you're in for a treat. Well, if you class over 6,000 words as long..._

_I own Naruto. Actually, I own everything. INCLUDING YOU... *evil laugh*_

_Enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong>(Third Person!)<strong>

Auburn hair thrown over her pillows, Katie let her eyes fall on the line of men shifting uncomfortably in front of her.

"So you're really the Akatsuki, huh?" she breathed. She let out a low whistle and shook her head in disbelief.

The girl started laughing gently under her breath, and the laughter grew until she was trembling to try and keep it under control. Eventually she seemed to just give up, and just let it all out, rolling on the bed clutching her stomach. Melissa was looking at her with a confused and creeped out expression and was trying to slowly edge away from her in fear of getting kicked by a flailing leg. Matt was just sat as far away on the bed as possible from both of them, face-palming.

Hidan leaned over to Deidara, who was stood next to him, and whispered in his ear. "Hey Dei-chan, you sure it was such a good idea to stay with these guys now?"

Deidara didn't even take his horrified eyes off of the hysterical girl on the bed and whispered back. "Well, at least we're not kitties anymore, hmm."

Hidan thought about it for a moment, then shrugged in agreement.

Katie's laughter died down a little, and she sat up again, fixing her pillows and wiping the tears from her eyes. Melissa sighed and moved back towards her original position in the middle of the double bed, just in front of Katie's feet. She pulled her knees up to her chest and looked like she was fighting an internal battle with herself, if the way her eyes kept flicking between Katie, Deidara and Sasori was any indication.

"Since the girls seem like they're too mentally unstable to talk right now, I think I'll talk to you first." Matt said with a smirk. A turquoise pillow promptly hit him in the face, causing him to look around and come face to face to a clearly back to normal Katie.

"Who were you calling mentally unstable again?" she asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes.

He didn't even flinch with his reply. "You and Mel. Don't even deny it, you just proved my point by changing from laughing your ass off, to pissed off and homicidal in less than a minute." Hidan and Kisame snorted.

"I think I'm starting to like this guy." The blue man said, nudging Itachi with an elbow. Said Uchiha just rolled his eyes with a small smirk.

"Hmm. I see your point." Katie said, looking away from Matt and tapping her chin in thought. "But you know I told you that I would be the first to talk to the Akatsuki if we ever met them, and even Tobi probably knows it's a bad idea to deprive a fangirl of her obsession."

Itachi suddenly looked back at Katie, his eyes wide with fear.

Hidan laughed. "Heh, the Uchiha pussy's shit himself. I've not seen him that scared since the time Kisame almost dropped Samehada on his foot."

Kisame chuckled along with him at the memory. "Oh yeah, I remember that! That was so funny, his face was absolutely priceless."

"I don't blame him, yeah." Deidara chipped in. "Fangirls are one of the scariest things I've ever met, un."

"And you guys are going to be living in a house with two of them until you can get back home." Matt chuckled. "I pity you."

Seeing the looks of pure terror on the men's faces who knew how dangerous fangirls were, Katie smiled warmly. "Hey, don't worry about it. I won't rape anyone. You'll probably get glomped randomly once it's settled in that I'm in the same house as the Akatsuki, but I'm not making any promises about her." She jabbed a thumb in Mel's direction. "Anyway, before we scare you any more, I think it's time we all introduce ourselves. I'm Katie, the idiot trying to control herself over there is Melissa, also known as Mel, and this is Matt. No need to tell us who you are, obviously we already know."

The group all nodded or grunted in greeting and the less emotionless members smiled a little.

"I'd actually like to ask you about that." Pein said stoically. "How _do _you three know so much about us? We're supposed to be a secret organisation, after all, and we're clearly not in our own world, so I find it quite strange that you recognised us."

Katie held her hand up. "Stop right there, mister. You guys can quiz us on everything after we question you, and after you get some clothes on." The members looked at her in confusion, before it dawned on them that they were still all only wearing towels. Everyone except Hidan, Zetsu and Tobi looked considerably more awkward at this realisation, and started fidgeting around a bit. "Matt's got some guys clothes around here somewhere, so Deidara, Sasori, Itachi, Tobi, Pein and Hidan go with him and he'll find you something. Oh and yes, Hidan, you do have to wear a shirt. I'm not having you run around my house like some creepy old stripper." Hidan growled and clenched his fists in annoyance, and Kakuzu and Deidara snickered at the insult. "Konan, you stay here with me and Mel, since we look about the same size, and Zetsu, Kisame and Kakuzu, go outside and there should be a cupboard to the left of the door. In there is a suitcase full of random giant clothes that one of Matt's friends left behind when they stayed over once. If you can't find it, go find Matt and he'll show you where it is. Once you're all done, come back in here, but don't forget to knock, just in case we aren't ready. Matt, lead the way."

Matt stood up and stretched his arms over his head. "Alright guys, let's go. The spare room where I keep my shit is this way..."

The men followed obediently behind him, and Itachi quietly closed the door behind him.

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Katie!)<strong>

Honestly, I felt like laughing all over again.

The Akatsuki! In _my _house! Oh my God. It's like a Naruto fangirl's dream!

Sadly, one of my best friends was having a mental breakdown beside me, and a fictional blue-haired female was standing awkwardly a few feet away from the bed, so I couldn't.

The only thing that could make it any better would be if Sasuke or Naruto just popped out of nowhere like the criminals did.

I bet Naruto would look like Pikachu in kitty form.

Since I'm used to Mel's craziness, I slid my legs off the side of the bed and stood up, looking Konan over. She looked exactly like she did in the anime; complete with bun, origami rose and lip piercing.

She was staring at Mel's shuddering body in confusion, so I laughed lightly and crossed my arms over my chest to get her attention.

"Don't worry about her, Konan." I said. "This happens pretty much every week. We're all used to it by now. If you think she's weird, just wait until you meet Demi."

She smiled at me, still staying silent.

"You can talk, can't you?" I asked.

Blinking, she giggled quietly and spoke in a soft voice. "Oh, yes, I can. Sorry about that, I'm just a bit nervous, I guess. I've not been around anyone other than those guys for quite a while, so I'm not used to new people."

I waved my hand in dismissal. "Ah, don't feel awkward around us. I'll go snap her out of her weirdness and then we can get you some clothes and let you get to know us better, okay?"

The Akatsuki woman nodded and watched as I calmly walked over to Mel and slapped her hard across the head.

"WAKE UP YOU FUCKING IDIOT! The guys aren't here now, it's just me, you and Konan, so there's no need to try and contain yourself anymore."

Mel stopped shaking and let her legs fall back down onto the bed. Her blue eyes flicked around a bit then focused on the girl on the other side of the room, who waved awkwardly.

"Uh, hi there." she laughed.

The emo suddenly leaped up from the bed and ran over to Konan with a scary burst of speed, almost tackling her to the ground with the force of her hug.

I think the only reason she stayed upright was because of her ninja strength and reflexes.

I probably would've fell on my ass if she tried that on me.

"KONAN!" she squealed, finally letting her go. "You're the most badass female _ever_! You are seriously one of my favourite girl cha-"

Mel was stopped mid-sentence by my hand slapping over her mouth.

The fucking idiot had almost blurted out that Konan was an anime character!

I hissed in her ear. "Mel! You freaking _retard_! You can't just tell people that they're just fucking fictional characters!"

She ripped my hand from her mouth and glared at me. "Well they obviously aren't right now, and we're gonna have to tell them sometime! Why not now?"

"Because we don't know how they'll react and if they'll believe us or not. Just leave this to me for now." I muttered. I put on a smile and walked back over towards a very confused Konan. "Sorry about that, my friend over there is a little bit slow. I'll explain later. Anyway, let's get you some clothes. What size do you wear?"

"Um, I don't wear sizes. I have make my own clothes and the cloaks for everyone." she said, fiddling with the tie on her bath robe.

"Oh yeah, I should've guessed. Well you look like you'd probably fit into our clothes, but my pants might be a bit long on you, you could just wear some of Mel's." I laughed.

"Does Melissa live here with you?" she asked quietly.

Aww, Konan's so cute.

Now I know why Pein secretly loves her so much.

We need to get them together.

Immediately.

"Nah, I've got my own flat down the road." Mel grinned. "I just stay here most of the time because it's better than living on my own, and it's not like this place hasn't got enough room. It's like a mansion."

"Why do you have your clothes here then?"

"Because I had a spare wardrobe and she always leaves something by accident each time she stays. The stuff she has here is basically a collection of forgotten clothes. She never wears most of it; it's kind of like a backup if she forgets to bring a spare outfit with her." I answered.

In my room there are three wardrobes. Two for me, one for her. Hers is full of old jeans, Converse, band t-shirts, hoodies and random eyeliners and other makeup that I've found scattered across my room.

To be honest, I think she has more clothes in my house than her own. She's even got a chest of drawers that's full of more of her shit, and loads of posters stuck up in a spare room next to mine.

Cheeky bitch acts like she really does live here.

Matt's almost as bad, but he's only got a chest of drawers and a box that gets shoved underneath the bed of another spare room. He's a typical guy.

"That reminds me, did you ever find my Paramore t-shirt?" Mel asked with a thoughtful expression.

"Yeah, I found it under my computer desk last week. Why?"

"Just wondering, I was looking for it yesterday."

"Right, it's in your wardrobe somewhere." Mel scampered off to dig out her t-shirt. "Okay Konan, since we've answered your question, I think it's time for you to get dressed before the guys get back in here. Wear whatever you want from any wardrobe, we don't mind. Thought I'd mention that Mel's a bit of an emo so her clothes are all in dark colours and are quite tight, but my clothes are still kinda tight most of the time, but I'm more fashion-conscious, so there's different colours and prints and stuff. You're probably going to end up wearing skinny jeans though, that's all both of us really wear." I pointed to each of the wardrobes in turn. "Obviously that wardrobe is Mel's, because she's looking in it right now. This one is where I keep everything for my top half, and that's for my bottom half and shoes. Oh and before I forget, you're obviously going to need underwear, so Mel, go find some for her from your drawers. Yours will probably fit her better."

Mel walked quickly out the room to go find the underwear.

"Don't feel so awkward, Konan. Everything's clean, and we're all girls." I said, patting her arm.

Something told me that it was really bad that Mel actually did what I told her to without threatening.

Suddenly it clicked.

"Mel! You better not go anywhere other than your spare room! I know what you're thinking of doing!" I yelled.

"Oh, what _do_ you mean?" came the all-too-innocent reply.

"No perving on Sasori and Deidara!" I shouted back.

"Damn! You know you want to too!" she moaned.

"Yes, but I can control myself, you raging perv!" I called, rolling my eyes. "Whatever. Konan, just go through the wardrobes and pick out what you want. If you need me, I'll be going to make sure Mel doesn't peek on your colleagues."

With that, I ran out the room in the direction of Mel, leaving behind an extremely disturbed and surprised Konan.

* * *

><p><strong>(Still First Person, Katie!)<strong>

Running down the hallway towards Matt's room, I saw a flash of black hair just about to arrive at his door.

Oh no, she was _so _not ignoring me.

I picked up my speed and leaped onto her back, pinning her to the floor with a _thud._

"And what do you think you're doing?" I growled in her ear.

"N-Nothing!" she squeaked.

"Sure you aren't." I sarcastically muttered. I got off her back and helped her up, still holding onto her wrist so she couldn't run away.

"Hey, did you guys hear something from outside, yeah?" came Deidara's voice.

"No, your mind is probably playing tricks on you in this new world. Oh wait, what mind?" chuckled another voice, obviously belonging to Sasori.

Mel flipped her head around to face me and gave me the kicked puppy dog face.

"No. We're going to get Konan her stuff, then we're going back to my room. We can talk about all this crap on the way." I dragged her off by the wrist, with her still struggling behind me, trying to sneak a look through the slightly open door.

"Aww, come on! Please!" she begged.

"No."

"Why not?"

"...Because."

"Because what?" she asked.

A few seconds later, she giggled evilly. "Heh, is this because your jealous that I'd get a peek on those two and you wouldn't get one of Itachi?"

"NO!"

Oops. Think I answered that one a little too quickly.

"HA! It _so_ is! You're a pervert too!" she giggled.

"Whatever. At least I'm not that obsessive that I google Itachi daily like you do with Sasori and Deidara."

Silence.

Katie 1, Melissa 0.

We just got to the door to her room when I released her, and she went in to grab the underwear. I just stood leaning against the doorjamb, looking at all of her posters of her favourite bands and animes. The wall by the window was buried under pictures of bands like Green Day, Fall Out Boy, 30 Seconds To Mars, Yellowcard, All Time Low, Paramore and loads of My Chemical Romance. The rest of the walls and part of the ceiling were pretty much covered in random pictures of us and our friends and Naruto, Vampire Knight, Twilight and Harry Potter posters. There was quite a few drawings and paintings mixed in there too.

If you think that's bad, you want to see her room in her flat.

Standing there, I had some time to make a quick plan of what to do. I decided that we would have to tell them about them being fictional characters pretty soon, because they'd get kind of creeped out if they came across this room or looked under my bed. I've got piles of manga, anime and more posters than Mel does. There's a couple of plastic tubs full of more of them, some cosplay shit and my own drawings hidden under there too. I had to put them away because I just decorated my room.

I'm quite relieved that happened now, because I don't really know how I would explain to people I just met why I have giant pictures of them and their enemies blue-tacked to my walls.

"What are we gonna do then, Katie?" Mel asked.

I sighed. "I'm not really sure. We've definitely got to tell them that they were originally just drawings created by Kishi, otherwise they'll freak out and think we're just some crazy stalker fangirls."

Mel gave me a look. "Well, we are, but that's not the point here. After we've explained everything and told them the things they need to know, I guess we'll just have to live with them for a while until someone finds a way to send them home. They can't live here forever."

"Yeah, I thought that too." she said. "But how did they get here in the first place?"

"Probably Tobi. It's always his fault." I laughed. "Maybe just some jutsu gone wrong, or messed with the wrong person."

"Speaking of Tobi, why is he even here?" Mel asked.

I looked confused. "What do you mean? He's in the Akatsuki, duh."

"But wasn't he supposed to come along in Shippuden after Sasori died?" she said.

I thought about that for a moment.

Yeah, Sakura and Granny Chiyo killed Sasori in the Kazekage Rescue Arc, then Tobi came along with Zetsu and became Deidara's new partner.

Why the hell was he here now then?

I shrugged it off.

"I dunno. Maybe the storyline's different to what Kishi wrote." Mel nodded in understanding, but I could tell she was still suspicious. "Let's just hurry up. Konan's probably got an outfit picked out by now, and the guys will nearly be ready."

She picked up the things she needed, and followed me out the room, closing the door behind her.

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Again)<strong>

I knocked on the door to my room.

"Yes?" Konan called.

"Hey Konan, it's just us. Can we come in?" I said.

"O-Oh, of course!"

I turned the doorknob and let us both in to find Konan sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap with an outfit lying next to her.

She'd picked a pair of Mel's dark blue skinny jeans and black Converse, with a long, sleeveless navy and purple floral top. She had hung a chunky black cardigan on a hook on the wall behind her.

"Not bad, considering you only wear ninja clothes all the time." I laughed.

I have to admit, those would look pretty good on her.

She giggled. "Well, we don't always wear our ninja outfits. When we're on holiday or when we have to be disguised as civilians, we get to wear our own clothes."

"Really? Cool!" Mel grinned. "I always thought you guys were like permanently stuck in ninja gear."

"We used to be, but I asked Pein to change the rules a little, since I was tired of wearing the same clothes every day. Plus, mine attract quite a bit of unwanted attention from Hidan." she sighed.

"Ew. So Hidan really is a pervert." Mel said, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

"My thoughts exactly." I laughed.

Mel held out the clothes she'd brought. "I hope these are okay, we'll go buy you some of your own when we go shopping on Saturday."

"Thank you, it's really nice of you to lend all this to us." Konan smiled, taking the bundle from Mel and picking up the rest of her things.

"No problem, we couldn't just let you all stay in towels, however much we'd all love to. Go get changed in the bathroom there, and I've got makeup and things in the top drawer if you need them." I pointed her towards the bathroom door. "Hurry up unless you want the guys to barge back in while you're still half naked. We'll wait here."

Konan voiced her thanks again before heading through the door. No sooner had she closed it, we heard a loud knock from the door we entered from and some muttering from the hall.

"Hey Katie, Mel, is it okay to come in?" Matt called.

"Yeah sure, come in." Mel replied.

The door swung open with a _click, _revealing Matt and the nine fully-dressed men.

All of them were wearing jeans of some sort; the majority of them being dark or just your average blue, but Deidara and Itachi wore black. Tobi had a black t-shirt with Stewie Griffin wearing an evil grin on it, with red lettering underneath that read '_The world will be mine!_'.

_Ironic... _I thought. _Well played Matt._

The rest of the group had just different coloured t-shirts or short sleeved button-ups. All in all, they looked pretty good for just wearing some of Matt's left-overs.

"So, what do you think?" Matt grinned.

"I think it's a miracle that Mel isn't drooling right now." I said, still raping them all with my eyes. "And it's also a miracle that you got Hidan into a shirt."

"Hey!" said masochist barked.

"I know. We almost had to force him into one, un." Deidara said. "Stubborn bastard made us let him keep it open though."

Pein looked like he was about to repeat his question from earlier, so for a distraction for me to make more of a plan, I let go of Mel's wrist which I had grabbed just before they had entered. She looked at me with a 'you sure?' kind of face, so I nodded and grinned evilly at Deidara and his partner.

"For your own safety, I would run as fast as you can." Matt whimpered from behind Kisame. "You've got about two seconds to live..."

"DEI-DEI!" Mel squealed, running over to an absolutely terrified Deidara. She leaped at him from about a foot away and latched onto him in a hug/glomp.

"What the fuck?" he yelled. He tried to pry her off of him, but her fangirl instincts had completely taken over, so she seemed to have super human strength or something.

I looked over to Sasori, knowing he was her next victim. He was pretty much laughing his ass off like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

"Ha ha! Oh my god, ha! Ha ha ha wait wha-!"

His laughter was cut off my Mel releasing the blond bishie and grabbing onto him instead.

"Sasori-danna! You're so awesome!" she said while cutting off his air supply. Suddenly she blinked and looked up at him like a rabbit in headlights. She quickly dropped off him and started poking his chest, neck and shoulders.

"What is she doing to me?" he frowned, rubbing his chest where he had obviously been poked just a little too hard.

Even I was a bit confused, so I stood up and pulled her back to the bed by the elbow.

"Mel, why were you poking Sasori?" I asked.

She looked up at me with a completely shocked expression. "Can't you tell? Look at him! His neck!"

I looked at his neck to see what the hell she was talking about. There was nothing there.

Ohhhh, exactly.

That's what the problem was.

I grinned. "Ah. Look at your neck Sasori. Don't you think something's missing?"

He looked at me like I was completely insane. "What do you mean, 'something's missing'? I've still got my neck, so obviously there isn't."

"Didn't there used to be a joint on your neck, ex-puppet boy?" I said.

"Ex-puppet boy? What?" He lifted one of his hands to his face and started flexing his fingers and inspecting them. "Oh my god."

"Looks like Pinnochio turned into a real boy." Hidan snickered, earning a few laughs from most people.

"I-I'm not a puppet any more! How is this even possible?" Sasori whispered to himself.

"I dunno. I guess it was a side effect of whatever you did to get here. Is there anything else different about any of you?" I replied.

"My Sharingan doesn't seem to be functioning properly, so now it's useless. The only thing the same is the appearance." Itachi muttered.

"Shame." I tutted. "Anything else?"

"We've got no fucking chakra and I think I'm mortal again." Hidan grumbled.

"No chakra? Probably because we don't have chakra in this world, so it would only make sense for you not to have any too. And mortal? There's one way to find out!" I walked over to my desk and rooted around behind it for a minute. "Aha! Got it!"

I pulled out a large knife and threw it straight at Hidan's chest. It hit him directly where his heart was.

Bullseye.

"Ouch! What the fuck! I might die from that you stupid bitch!" he roared, ripping it out from himself.

"Obviously not, because that hit you in the heart, and you're still alive to bitch about it." I smirked. He blinked in realisation and looked down to the hole in his chest. "Kuzu-kun, do you mind stitching him up for me before he bleeds all over my new carpet?"

"Only if you never call me that again." he growled.

"Sure, sure, just hurry up! I don't need his immortal insides all over my floor!" I shouted. "And that wasn't a promise." I added with a grin.

Kakuzu grumbled something inaudible under his breath, but reluctantly dragged his partner to the other side of the room by his hair, much to the protest of the bleeding Jashinist.

At that point, Konan decided to come out of the bathroom, fully dressed and wondering what all the noise was. Most of the guys turned around to see her, and Pein's gaze lingered a little longer than the rest.

Aww, just so cute.

Matt must have noticed too, because he cleared his throat to get their attention.

"Hey Konan! You're just in time, we were about to start quizzing you all." Mel waved.

"_You _quizzing _us_?" Kisame asked incredulously. "Shouldn't it be the other way round? You seem to know a little bit too much about us, if you ask me, and I'm pretty sure we all want to know why."

"All in good time, my giant blue friend." I said. "We'll tell you everything once you tell us how the fuck you got here in the first place."

The entire group looked thoughtful for a moment, like they were trying to remember something.

Pein glanced at me. "We don't know. The last thing all of us remember was sitting in the meeting room for our morning meeting, then Hidan woke us all up with his arguing in that box you found us in."

The rest of the members nodded in agreement.

"Hmm, weird." Mel said. "I've got a question too! Why is Tobi here?"

"Huh? Because we needed someone to replace Orochimaru, obviously, yeah." Deidara said.

Mel raised her eyebrow at me.

I raised mine back.

And we thought we knew everything about that goddamn anime.

"Why do you ask?" Pein said emotionlessly as Konan walked up to stand next to him.

"Oh, no reason." I chuckled sheepishly. "Never mind. Since it looks like you guys can't really answer any of our questions yet, I guess it's your turn to ask us what you want."

"Thank you. I would like to start by asking you how you seem to know so much about us and our organisation, and what it is you know. Like I have no doubt said before, you know a little too much for my liking."

I sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "That is... a long story, and you might not like the answer."

"It can't be that bad. Just tell us." Konan said with a gentle smile.

"Okay then, your funeral..." Mel mumbled.

"Where do I start..." I sighed. "I think I'll show you something first, just so you don't think I'm completely crazy when I tell you."

I slid off the bed and crawled underneath it, just the bottom of my denim-clad legs still in view. I pulled out the box that contained most of my Naruto posters and crawled back out.

"This is part of my poster collection." I began. "In here is about thirty posters from an anime and a manga called Naruto. You probably know what a manga is, but an anime is a cartoon TV show based on manga style drawings." I noted the looks of shock on Itachi, Kisame, Konan and Pein's faces. The rest just looked bored.

Hidan and Kakuzu walked back over then, Hidan rubbing his now stitched-up chest. Obviously it still hurt him.

Bitch deserved it.

"So, is this going somewhere or are you just trying to fucking bore us to death with stupid stories?" Hidan yawned.

I growled and picked the bloody knife back up from the floor. "Unless you want this sticking in your empty head next time, I'd shut the fuck up." He closed his mouth immediately and looked like he wanted to hide behind Kakuzu. I snorted and stabbed the knife into my desk, satisfied with his reaction. "So yeah, there are a few of you here that recognise that name, right?"

The members who had looked shocked earlier all nodded their heads.

"Since you're some of the smarter and more sane ones in the group, I think at least one of you has put the pieces together by now." I said, looking pointedly at Pein and Itachi. "For those of you who haven't, I'll just come out and say it. In this world, you're all just characters made from some guy's imagination. You all belong in the Naruto world."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Yeah, I didn't like that chapter too much._

_It was kinda boring in my opinion, and I was going to continue it but I realised how long it was, so stopped there._

_If it gets really shit towards the end, it's because of extreme tiredness and writer's block, so don't blame me._

_I'm literally nodding off on my laptop as I'm writing this._

_Don't hesitate to bitch at me about it in a review, I want to know what my faults are so I can fix them. :)_

_Hmm. Nothing really interesting to report._

_Just that I've started fangirling over SasuSaku, so I've been engrossed in loads of fanfiction today._

_Any of you guys been fangirling over the Hunger Games lately?_

_Most of the people in my form have been, and the worst ones have been wearing (idk how to spell it) 'Catness' plaits every day since they began their obsessions._

_It's so annoying._

_I'll just stick to reading my manga for now. :3_

_**Random Fact #3: **In real life, the people that Katie and Mel are based on are 13 years old, but they're both 17 in this. Mel's birthday is November 18th, and Katie's is February 11th._

_Honestly, thanks for all the praise in the reviews, I really appreciate it. However, if you do have any criticism for me, no matter what it is, please go ahead and include it in a review, unless you're an anon flame, then you can just gtfo._

_Anyone want to go read The Demoness of the Snow? I've had like 23 hits on it, and I feel forever alone. :(_

_It's another AkatsukiXOC story, except it's in their world._

_Next Chapter due 31/03/12, but possibly the 24th, depends how much time I have and my writing speed._

_Thanks for reading! :D_


	5. Chapter Five: Cosplay and Ringtones

_A/N: Hello, back again! :D_

_Another early update, what's wrong with me?_

_Don't get used to it though, as soon as I get over my block for Forever Falling, it'll probably be back onto fortnightly updates, so don't bitch to me saying I didn't warn you. :)_

_Oh god, I'm mentally scarred. Some wrinkly old pensioners were just dancing to a song by Plan B on the news. I'll never hear that song without a disturbing mental image ever again… X_X_

_Yeah, Naruto isn't owned by anyone to be honest. It just appeared out of nowhere and now I'm writing a fanfic about it. Because things that spontaneously appear are awesome, like Kakashi._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Katie!)<strong>

The looks of shock on all of the members' faces were so hilarious.

Even Pein had his mouth hanging open a bit.

I seriously had to use every scrap of willpower I had to not burst out laughing.

"You're bullshitting us! You're fucking insane!" Hidan shouted.

"Oh really? Then why do I have posters in here like this one?" I reached into the box and pulled out a poster about two feet wide of the entire Akatsuki in full uniform, with the small orange Naruto logo in the top right corner.

Deidara snatched it from my grip and stared at it, the rest of the group eyeing it suspiciously over his shoulder.

"I-It could be a fake! There must be some other reason, yeah!" he said hopefully.

"Sorry to disappoint, but no, it's not. This box and quite a few more under my bed are full of these babies." I sighed, patting the box. "Right now, I have no idea how you've crossed universes and ended up here either. We only know so much about you because we're mega fans of Naruto, and because we're such major fans, we know almost everything. That includes your likes, dislikes, enemies, backgrounds, personalities, the aims of the Akatsuki, and of course, depending on your age, your futures."

"You know our futures?" Konan gasped.

"Yeah, we know roughly what should happen to you all in the next few years." Mel said. "Those two know a little more than I do, but we're all about equal."

"Before you even ask, no we aren't going to tell you." Matt joined in. Hidan and Deidara scowled, Kisame muttering a 'damn!' under his breath. "In the original timeline, this is the past for the story, so it's like messing with history if you accidentally do something different now."

"Yeah, because appearing in the past in another universe as kittens isn't something different from the original story." I deadpanned. "I think we can tell them a few things over time, but nothing that could majorly affect anything."

"I see your point." Pein mused. "It might not be a very good thing to act differently here and our world is completely different by the time we get back."

I nodded. "Now that's cleared up, is there anything else you wanted to ask?"

"Yeah, un. What are we going to do in this world? We don't know how long we're gonna be here for, we've got no chakra, and we've got no money. I'm not sure we're gonna be able to survive long, yeah." Deidara said.

"You really think we're going to let you run riot in our world? No chance." I scoffed. "You guys are staying here with us so we can supervise the idiots in the group, and you don't need to worry about money since I'm pretty much loaded."

"Are you sure? We wouldn't be wanting to put a burden on you." Konan said.

"Burden? Ha!" Mel laughed. "You guys staying here would be one of the best things that could ever happen to us."

"Definitely. This is going to be so awesome!" I agreed with a massive grin. "You look like you want to ask us something Itachi."

The Uchiha dipped his head. "I was just wondering if you had any idea of how to get us home. We can't stay for too long or our skills will deteriorate a considerable amount."

"Ah, Itachi. Always the workaholic, I see." I said. "In case you hadn't noticed, we don't have chakra, so we can't do any flashy jutsu to poof you back, and I'm pretty sure that messing around with time and space isn't possible in anything but sci-fi movies yet. I'll try and think of something, but for now, you're stuck here. Feel free to try for yourself too if you get impatient."

He nodded, but everyone could see the look of nervousness and disappointment of his face, even Melissa.

"Don't be sad, Itachi. We aren't that bad when we aren't drunk or hyper." Mel grinned.

She had a point, but I can't actually remember the last time she wasn't one of those.

Suddenly, a song started playing from what seemed like out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of everyone, especially the foreigners.

_Let me light up the sky, light it up for you. Let me light up the sky-y…_

Mel dived towards the hoodie she'd hung on my door and rummaged through one of the pockets, chucking random receipts, wrappers and other shit over my floor in the process. Soon enough she pulled out a black mobile phone, tapping the screen to answer whoever was calling her.

"Sup hoe." She said, holding it up to her ear.

"_Hey there, fatass. Is Katie around with you?" _Came the reply.

"Yeah, I'll put her on loudspeaker now, hold on." Mel took the phone away from her ear and mouthed 'Demi' at me. I nodded and shot a 'shut the fuck up or die painfully' look at the Akatsuki.

"Hey Demi." I called. "What's up?"

"_Hi, not much. I was just letting you know I'll be back from Wales on Tuesday, The Bitch Mother is making me stay a little longer." _Demi sighed.

"Oh cool, no worries." I said. "I think I'll warn you that you might be in for a bit of a shock when you get here though, and I've got a feeling Mel and Matt will still be here too."

"_Shock? Did you finally get a boyfriend or something?_" she snickered. Mel giggled a little, so I slapped her over the head, earning a pout.

"Shut up or I'll stab you with a pencil multiple times when you aren't expecting it. And you haven't done much better with guys anyway. So no, I still haven't got a boyfriend, it's a surprise." I snapped. "You'll just have to find out when you get here."

"_Sure, whatever."_ She laughed. "_I'll see you when I get back then. If Mel's drank all of my Red Bull again though, she's dead."_

Mel gulped, and I sighed with a facepalm.

How stupid could she get? Nobody steals Demi's energy drinks and gets away with it.

_Nobody_. Not even Tobi would be stupid enough to think that.

She gets more vicious than I am on a Sunday morning with PMS and a hangover.

"Alright. I'll have them replaced by Tuesday." I said. "Text me later or something, okay?"

"_Kay._" she replied. "_Bye guys!_"

"Bye!" Mel said, hanging up and putting the phone back down next to her.

"Hmm. It's weird not having Demi tearing this place up for so long." I said.

Mel and Matt nodded.

It was at that point that I noticed the Akatsuki were being uncharacteristically quiet. My glare couldn't have kept them all silent for that long, so I looked over and actually laughed out loud.

All of them had either freaked out or curious expressions on their faces. Deidara was glaring at the phone, willing it to explode in front of him and Hidan just looked like he wanted to sacrifice it.

"What the shit is that thing?" Hidan yelled.

Oh yeah, I forgot they didn't have mobiles in their world.

An evil idea popped into my head. Might as well take advantage of their crappy knowledge of technology.

Time to play some mind games...

"This thing?" I asked, gesturing to the phone. He nodded quickly. "It's a device that we use here to contact the dead. That voice you heard was one of a ghost, and she's a little crazy, so she thinks she's still alive, when really she died in a country called Wales last year."

"What the fuck, un!" Deidara looked disgusted. "Why would you wanna talk to some dead girl, yeah? That's so creepy, you freaking nec... ro..."

"I think the word you're looking for is necrophiliac. **I can't believe he actually knew a word over six letters long, even if he didn't remember it. **Don't be mean, Deidara isn't _that _dumb! **Oh please, I bet Tobi has more of a brain than him sometimes**. You know as well as we all do that that is completely impossible. **...Touché.**" Zetsu argued... added... said...

Oh fuck this, I don't even know a word to describe a way that schizo speaks. I'll just stick with said for now.

"Zetsu, that's Iruka's line." I stuck my tongue out at the green haired man/men. (_A/N: Naruto Abridged reference for you awesome people who get it.)_

"Not really, it's part of the culture in this world." Matt said, obviously ignoring Zetsu's one-person battle and my epic reference. "Unless you don't mind insulting our interests, shut up."

Mel was trying to stifle a laugh, but a little giggle passed through her defences. I guess Zetsu's argument just tipped her over the edge.

Pein and Itachi noticed her, and the pierced ginger sighed.

"Sorry to spoil your fun, but I think you've terrified my members enough, don't you?" he said.

I swear there was a small smirk pulling on his lips.

Hmm. Must've just been a trick of the light.

Pein's too badass to show emotions.

"I knew it'd be the ginger who figured it out first, we're just too awesome for you mentally challenged types." I smirked back at him.

Matt snorted. "Dream on."

Mel broke out into full-blown giggles and Hidan turned around to face her. You could pretty much see the wheels turning in his head, and he turned to glare at me again.

"You _bitch!_ You fucking lied to us!" He shouted.

Seriously, doesn't that guy know the meaning of quiet? "What does it really fucking do?"

"Honestly, do you have some disorder that makes you cuss at least once per sentence?" I sighed.

"No I don't, so shut the fuck up! Now tell us what it does, it's freaking me the fuck out." he grumbled.

"Fine, fine. It's what we call a mobile phone, or phone for short." I explained. "If someone else has a phone in the world, they can type in a certain number to contact this phone, then they talk through their phone and we can hear their voice through this little speaker, and vice versa. You can also send people little messages that you read called texts, and most phones have other flashy shit on them that I can't be arsed explaining right now."

"I want one, yeah." Deidara decided.

"That sounds very expensive..." Kakuzu muttered.

"It would be Kakuzu who mentions prices, wouldn't it." Mel giggled.

"Well that depends what type you get. There are pretty cheap ones, then there's the total rip offs." Matt said.

"So they range from what price?" The miser continued.

"Out of the phones that people actually use everyday, the cheapest I've seen is £3 or something, so about the price of three loaves of bread, and the most expensive is in the thousands somewhere." I said. Kakuzu's eyes pretty much bugged out of his head. "Average price is about £40-60 I think, and all of ours are near the high end of the prices. Mel's is a top phone so she has a reason, mine is just as shitty little brick that is a complete rip, and Matt's is pretty decent since he's a tech nerd. Unlike us though, he hardly ever uses it since he pretty much has nobody to phone."

He glared at me.

I stuck my tongue out with a smirk.

"Yep. If you ever get a phone while you're here, never get a Blackberry, or you'll be sorry." Mel nodded sagely.

"Actually, if they're staying for longer than two weeks, I think I'll buy them some cheap-o mobiles so we can let them out of the house without them getting lost or hit by a bus." I said.

"What was that music it played at first though? I've never heard anything like it." Kisame said.

Mel and I facefaulted.

"Wait a minute, you've never heard rock music?" Mel gaped. Kisame and the others shook their heads in denial. "Wow, you guys have seriously never lived."

"I don't even care that you're all ninja and some of you could blow shit up with a single handsign, if you've never heard rock, you don't know the meaning of life." I said, grabbing my iPod and scrolling through it to find an awesome song to put on.

"Hey, I don't like rock music, you saying I don't have a life?" Matt pouted.

"Yes." We simultaneously replied.

"Bitches. I don't even know why I'm friends with you guys sometimes." Matt muttered, sending us a death glare. "I'm gonna go raid the fridge or something." He turned around and yanked open the door, slamming it shut behind him. I heard him start stomping down the stairs on his quest for food.

"You love us really!" I called after him.

"You wish!" he retorted.

"Bring us that crate of coke and some crisps on your way back up, yeah?" Mel shouted.

"Hn. Only because it's for the Akatsuki too." he said. "I'm not your freaking slave, so don't get used to it."

"Of course you aren't our slave, Matt." I grinned. "You're just the bitch of the household."

"Fuck you, Katie!"

I laughed and looked back at the Akatsuki again, about to talk. I blinked when I realised that we were still in my room for no reason at all, and they all had nowhere to sit.

"Actually, let's go sit in the living room. I wanna fuck with Matt a little more before he starts going all emo on us from our annoyingness." I paused. "If that's even a word."

_"_Who cares? Let's go annoy the emo!" Mel whooped. I shot her a deadpan look.

"Mel, you're an emo." I said.

She paused. "Oh yeah..."

"Sorry to interrupt your riveting conversation," Sarcastic ass. "but can we go somewhere to sit down? My legs are aching, so I guess I'm not used to having my real body back yet." Sasori asked.

"Aw, is Mister Puppet getting tired?" Hidan mocked.

"Shut up Hidan, it's not funny." Sasori growled.

"Ah, don't get your fucking knickers in a twist." Sasori gave him a warning glare from the corner of his eye.

I stepped in between them and spread my arms open. "Ladies please, calm down. I seriously do not need any more blood on my carpet, thank you very much. I've got enough of it from when I stabbed Hidan earlier."

Sasori just rolled his eyes and looked away.

Hidan huffed and folded his arms like the spoilt brat he secretly is. I bet Kakuzu treats him like a princess when nobody's watching.

"Whatever. Bagsy the beanbag!" Mel shouted, running out the door and towards the stairs.

"Fuck! I wanted the beanbag!" I cursed. Hidan gave me a weird look. "Hey, if you've felt how awesome it is to sit in that thing, you'll know what I mean. Now let's go kiddies, before she drinks all the coke and goes even more hyper than usual."

I herded the murderers out of my room and spotted Mel waiting at the top of the stairs with her arms folded in a mood.

"What happened?" I sighed.

"Matt stole the beanbag." she pouted.

"Heaven forbid." I sarcastically said.

"Are you two gonna talk all fucking day or can we get downstairs sometime soon?" Hidan moaned.

I waved my hand in dismissal. "Ah, quit your whining."

"Not until I get some food, ginger bitch!" he growled.

I froze.

Oh, no, no, _no_.

Slowly turning around with a murderous glare, I asked Hidan a question. "What did you just say?"

"I said, I won't fucking quit until I get some fucking food, ginger bitch!" he repeated.

My voice was low and level as I kept my eyes glued to the Jashinist. "Mel, take everyone but the pervert and Kakuzu downstairs, now."

"Y-Yeah sure I will! Come on guys, time to go!" she nervously laughed.

She grabbed Sasori and Deidara's arms and pulled them downstairs with her, the rest of the Akatsuki giving me confused looks over their shoulders as they trailed behind them.

"Kakuzu, keep him there while I get something. I think you'll _love_ what's going to happen next." I ordered.

The normally masked man grabbed the albino in a headlock with a smirk.

"W-What's going on?" Hidan stuttered.

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Mel!)<strong>

As soon as Hidan let those words out of his mouth, I knew he was completely fucked.

Katie only lets two categories of people call her ginger, and those are her closest friends and other gingers.

Anyone else saying it is completely taboo. If you think her temper's bad when you call her anything else, you've got another thing coming when you see her reactions to the hair jokes.

The rules are as follows:

If you don't fit into the above categories and you call Katie ginger, whether you mean it as a joke or not, you die. Slowly, and painfully.

I latched onto Sasori and Deidara and pulled them along first, since I didn't want my two favourite fictional fitties getting caught in the crossfire.

They're too sexy to get permanently scarred.

I pulled them both along the corridor a little further and pushed them into the front room, turning to yell at the others to hurry up.

I could hear Katie mooching for something in her room, and I instantly knew she was looking for her knife.

I mean, what else would she be looking for if she wanted to kill someone?

"Uh, is there a reason you're holding on to us so tight, yeah?" Deidara asked with a confused expression.

Damn, that face was cute.

"I know. You're actually starting to hurt my arm, and I don't really want to get this body bruised only an hour or so after I just got it." Sasori grumbled.

"Oh, oops!" I let go of Sasori's arm, but refused to stop clinging to Dei.

The redhead frowned at me and rubbed his sore arm.

I guess I'm stronger than I thought.

"Can you let go of me too?" he asked. I shook my head quickly and looked up at him with what I hoped was a helpless expression that he would melt at.

When his eyes softened, I knew I'd won.

"Okay, well can you tell me why you look so scared then, hmm?" Deidara said.

I recited Katie's rules that she'd made me and all of our other friends memorise in Year Seven. (_A/N: For the Americans and the other non-Brits, that's age 11-12)_

He gulped and looked up towards the landing where the impending battle would take place. I pulled his fringe gently and made him look at me. "For your own mental safety, don't look up."

"**_DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME A FUCKING GINGER EVER AGAIN YOU MENTALLY RETARDED PIECE OF SHIT!_**"

"FUCK! KAKUZU, LET GO OF ME YOU BASTARD! SHE'S GONNA FUCKING RIP ME TO SHREDS!"

"Exactly. That's why I'm keeping you here, you deserve it."

"FUCKING STITCHED BASTARD! I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU- AHHHH FUCK!"

We all heard the sounds of Kakuzu's evil chuckling and tearing immortal flesh.

I'm surprised Katie actually stabbed him since she was bitching about bloodstains on the carpet about five minutes earlier.

I ran into the front room and dragged Deidara with me, the rest of the people following hurriedly behind us.

Over the screaming and cursing from upstairs, I heard Deidara whisper to himself. "Shit! I never thought I'd say this, but poor Hidan, yeah."

I nodded again and flopped onto the sofa just as the screaming died down to just loud whimpering and angry panting, pulling the blonde I was currently attached to down with me to cuddle up to.

Matt looked up from his PS Vita and pulled out his headphones. "Katie trying to kill Hidan?"

Kisame shakily nodded. "Yeah."

"I never thought I'd see a woman so violent..." Sasori said.

"Katie-chan is scary when she's angry." Tobi whispered.

"Does this kind of thing happen often?" Pein asked. It kind of freaked me out how he didn't look bothered by what had happened.

Matt shrugged. "About once a week. She never usually gets the knife out, I guess she's only doing that since Hidan's immortal."

The Akatsuki shivered, making Matt chuckle. "Wow, you guys are such pussies for S-rank criminals. I bet Shizune could handle that better."

"Shizune?" Deidara asked.

I glanced up at him. "Matt's fanboy obsession. She's a medic in your world, and Tsunade's apprentice."

"Tsunade, as in Sannin Tsunade?" Kisame asked.

"Yup. And hot as hell." Matt grinned perversely, his eyes glazing over as he began one of his creepy daydreams.

"Matt! Stop having dirty thoughts about Shizune!" I barked.

He pouted.

"Fine. I'll just go back to my game." he said, plugging his headphones back in and heading back into the world of gaming.

At that point, we heard some footsteps coming down the stairs, so I gripped onto Deidara even harder out of fear.

Katie peeked her head around the door and noted everyone's expressions and flashed us all a grin.

"Ah, don't worry. Hidan will be fine. I didn't get any vital spots." she said.

"NO VITALS? BITCH YOU STABBED ME IN THE FUCKING NECK!" Hidan screamed.

"SHUT UP BEFORE I DO IT AGAIN, ASSHOLE!" she yelled back.

* * *

><p><strong>(First Person, Katie)<strong>

I should maul Hidan more often.

It's actually a really good stress-buster, believe it or not.

"So Matt, where did you put the cokes?" I asked, walking into the room and plopping into my armchair.

He pointed to a table in the corner of the room. "Over there."

I went over and grabbed three, tossing two to Matt and Mel, and taking a swig of my own before returning to the squishy goodness that is my armchair.

"Katie?" Mel began.

"Yeah?"

"Is Hidan gonna be okay?" she asked cautiously.

I noticed then that she was pretty much glued to Deidara, so I guess she must have actually been scared.

Oops.

"He'll be fine, the idiot finally got taught a lesson, that's all." Kakuzu smirked as he walked in with us and leaned against a wall, Hidan following closely behind.

"Pfft. Whatever. You're lucky I'm immortal, bitch." he muttered.

"I know." I grinned. "So, anyone want anything to eat or drink?"

Kisame, Hidan and Zetsu's eyes lit up. "You have food?"

"Yeah. Nothing really healthy, just random shit. Katie despises anything that could even be vaguely classed as a vegetable, and the only fruit she'll eat is grapes." Matt said.

"**Good, we would've had to eat her if she did." **Zetsu smirked.

Not even White Zetsu disagreed on that one, and that kinda scared me.

Well, wouldn't you be if a plant man told you that he would eat you?

"So yeah, follow me to the kitchen and I'll get you all something." I said, dragging myself out of my chair and shuffling towards the kitchen.

My kitchen is actually quite big compared to some, but that's probably due to the massive size of my house. A six-bedroom house is pretty huge around here.

Even though it's big, I haven't got much decoration in my place. The walls are just painted white everywhere except for the kitchen, upstairs bathroom, living room and my bedroom, and the carpet is just plain cream everywhere unless there's wooden floors like downstairs, when it'll have a random coloured rug thrown on it.

I've got two reasons for this:

1. I can't be arsed decorating, and I'm too tight to pay for someone to come in.

2. If I had any decorations or ornaments, they'd either get broken by Mel being a retard, or destroyed at one of our parties.

I throw a party every two weeks on a Saturday, and they're known for being so awesome everywhere in a 2-mile radius. Nobody gets invited, they just know that they're allowed to come unless I hate them or they piss me off somehow.

Even though my birthday wasn't on a Saturday, I was having one anyway, so that explains the massive amount of party food.

I grabbed some bags of crisps from an overhead cupboard, a bottle of lemonade, and a carton of orange juice and added them to the pile on the table.

"Whoa, that's a lot of food you got there." Kisame grinned.

"I know, so grab what you want and bring it back to the living room with you once you've got as much as you think you'll need." I said, popping a grape into my mouth from the fridge. "Then we can sort out what we're gonna do today, and what's gonna happen tonight."

Everyone dived at the table and took what they wanted.

I snorted into my coke when I saw Hidan's almost depressed face when Zetsu stole the last packet of Smokey Bacon crisps.

Once the animals had returned from feeding, they all went back to their original positions, except for Hidan, who came over and sat on the arm of my chair, munching crisps nonchalantly.

"So, you forgive me for raging on you earlier?" I smiled.

"Yep. Someone gives me lots of good food when I need it, and they're fucking forgiven no matter what." he grinned. "Plus, I like a woman who can take care of herself."

"Good! Because you're one of my favourite characters, so I don't want you hating me." I leaned over and hugged him around the waist with a snicker. He tried to peel me off him with a string of curses, but I let go by myself anyway, I feel awkward after prolonged physical contact.

"So, you wanted to talk to us?" Konan asked sweetly.

"Yeah. As you already know, it's my 17th birthday today-"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Mel interrupted. I cleared my throat and continued.

"So I'm throwing a party tonight to celebrate my awesomeness. I was planning to stick up some decorations and shit and tidy up a little before tonight. But because this place is like a mansion, tidying up normally takes all day with just us three, so unless you guys get off your asses and help us, the house is never gonna be ready." I said. "There's one problem here though. Not many people in our world have blue skin, stitches, Rinnegan eyes or wear masks, so you're going to have to pretend to be cosplayers to fit in."

"Wait, you want them to cosplay as themselves?" Mel giggled. "That's so weird!"

"What's 'cosplay'?" Kakuzu asked. "I hope it doesn't cost much."

"Cosplay is where people dress up as anime characters, and the Akatsuki is actually really popular." Matt said, still not taking his eyes away from his game.

I thought it was only women who could multitask.

Oh wait...

"You guys are so lucky that there's a cosplay shop in town, so we can get you all of your cloaks and shit by tonight." I smiled. "Everyone else will just dress normally, but because everyone knows what we're like when it comes to anime, they won't give you any funny looks."

"Doesn't that close at one on a Friday though?" Mel asked.

"Oh shit, yeah! And it's what, 11:30 now?" I gasped. Mel nodded. "Guess we'll have to go soon then, once we all get ready."

I figured out how long it would take us to get there, and how we were going to get such a large group of people into town at lunchtime before the shop closed.

"We'll leave in about 15 minutes, because it takes us almost an hour to get there at this time by bus." I decided.

"Wait... You're actually going to take the _Akatsuki _to _town _on a _bus_?" Matt stated incredulously.

"Well, unless you can magically learn to drive and buy us a car big enough for all of us in ten minutes, then yes, I am." I said, lifting myself out of my chair and stretching my arms over my head.

"You guys finish eating, I'll go fix my hair and dig out some shoes and a jacket, then we can all go." I yawned. Sasori opened his mouth to speak, but I silenced him by continuing. "Before you even ask, I'll tell you what a bus is when we're walking to the stop." He snapped his mouth shut again.

"It's kind of creepy how you can read people you've only just met." Matt laughed, pulling out his headphones and flicking his fringe out of his eyes to took over at me.

I shrugged. "I might've just met them in real life, but I probably know them better than they know themselves."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Bad place to cut off, I know, but I had to rush the ending and get it published before I dragged this on even longer. _

_I'll edit and include a shitty story here tomorrow, but for now I've only got time to add a fact /3_

**Random Fact #3: **_Katie has only four weaknesses. __1.) Her lack of emotional control. 2.) Anything cute. 3.) Her fear of heights. 4.) Tickling._

_Next chapter due next Saturday, so 7/04/12!_


	6. Chapter Six: The Otaku Shop of Wonders

_A/N: Purely a filler chapter really. Hopefully it's not too shit._

_Enjoy!_

**_-x-_**

**(First Person, Katie!)**

As I walked into my room to sniff out a jacket and some Converse, I paused and turned to look at my reflection in the mirrored doors of my wardrobe.

I looked a state.

Since I was just expecting to be tidying up and doing other pre-party shit all day, I'd just thrown on a ratty t-shirt and a pair of old baggy jeans that both had randomly coloured paint splattered all over them. Teamed with my messed up hair, I looked like some sort of 90's throwback.

Being the incredibly self-conscious teen that I am, I stopped my hunt for outdoor clothes and burrowed though the mountain of material inside the wardrobe for a new outfit. After about a minute or rummaging, I dragged out a cream long-sleeved jumper and a pair of indigo skinny jeans.

I pulled the clothes on, and smoothed out the creases in front of the mirror of one of the doors. I closed the other and smiled at the reflection of Mel standing in the doorway.

"Hey Katie," she grinned. "Why'd you get changed?"

"Do you really think I'd set foot out this house looking like I did?" I said, walking past her to get to my dresser and dig through it for an eye pencil sharpener. "Hey, can you pass me my makeup bag? It's on my bed."

She leaned over and picked up the black satin bag and tossed it to me, before sitting down on the edge of the mattress. "Which bus we taking then?"

I sat down next to her and unzipped my bag. "The 10. We can get off at Central Station and walk down from there." I replied.

"Okay. So, how do you think they're gonna react to the buses?" she asked.

"I bet you £10 that Tobi freaks out," I pulled out a black eyeliner and began sharpening it while I spoke. "Hidan will start swearing and refuse to get on the bus, Kakuzu will flip at the price of tickets, and everyone else will just end up being really awkward or something."

Mel snorted as she snatched a lipgloss out of my bag and slicked some on. "You're on. Now come on, get your hair sorted and find some shoes. No doubt that The Bitch is pissed off by now."

"The Bitch?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Matt, duh." she giggled as she stood up from the bed. She walked over to the door and grabbed the hoodie that she'd hung on it, putting it on.

I grabbed my black Converse from under my bed and plucked a black leather jacket from the end of my bed, quickly running a brush through my unruly hair.

"You're learning well." I smirked. "Now you've just got to take advantage of him being the house bitch, and then you'll be my perfect minion."

"Nah, I couldn't be that mean to him." she said. "Calling him The Bitch is as far as I'll go."

I rolled my eyes and checked my makeup in a mirror. "I swear you two are secretly in love or something."

She snorted. "Yeah right. We all know that our love is reserved for not-so-fictional anime characters."

I considered it. "I guess so, his obsession with Erza _is_ a little creepy. Whatever, let's go and take the kitties to the shop."

Mel whooped and ran out downstairs, presumably to make sure everyone was ready so that they wouldn't keep me waiting and feel my wrath.

I might be late for everything and everyone, but it pisses me off when anyone's late for me.

I took one last look in the mirror to make sure I looked acceptable before taking the same path the idiot ran before me.

"Everyone ready to go?" I yelled from the hallway.

"Yep!" Mel replied, walking out of the front room, the rest of the gang trailing behind her, looking considerably more comfortable around us now. Guess Matt must've talked some sense into them.

Maybe the Bitch is useful for other things too.

"Good. I'll grab some money and my keys then we can get out of here. Matt, stop being an antisocial bastard and leave the game here." I ordered.

He scowled. "But I like my game!"

"Put it away. Now." I growled.

"Heh, that sounds dirty..." Mel giggled from behind her hand. I facepalmed. Hidan snickered with Deidara and Kisame, and even through his mask, I knew poor Tobi was confused.

"Dirty? What do you mean? A sentence can't be dirty, it's only words," he stated.

"Wow, just wow." I laughed, shaking my head. An idea popped into my head. "Hey, do any of you want to keep Tobi silent for about two hours?" Deidara, Zetsu, Hidan, Kisame and even Pein nodded quickly. "Well, looks like Deidara-chan needs to tell Tobi about the birds and the bees."

Kisame and Hidan burst out laughing, and Sasori just snorted and watched his partner with a smirk.

"Me?! Why me? I'm not telling the retard the facts of life! You're the one who brought it up, un!" Deidara shouted.

"Aww, is Senpai embarrassed?" I mocked with a pouty face. Deidara shot me a murderous look.

"Ooh, scary." I snickered at him. He glared even more.

"Senpai, what's 'the birds and the bees'?" Tobi asked.

"Dei-chan, I think that it's best you just get it over with. The fucking idiot won't shut up if you don't, and you know it," smirked Hidan, patting Deidara on the shoulder.

Tobi tugged on Deidara's sleeve. I couldn't help but snort at Deidara's face. I would pay _millions_ to see Pein pull that face. Millions, I swear. "Please, Senpai? Tobi wants to know!"

"Fine! If any of you tell anyone I did this, I know where you live, yeah." Deidara huffed.

"Sure, sure. Let's go, the shop will be closed soon." I laughed, grabbing a small wad of notes and a handful of coins from a drawer and my keys from the hook by the door, before stepping outside into my driveway.

**-x-**

"How much longer are we going to wait? Tobi's whimpering is irritating me already." Sasori muttered.

The walk to the bus stop took us about five minutes, but that small amount of time was _very _entertaining.

Everyone was silent, trying to listen in on Deidara's rushed 'talk' with Tobi. They both stood a fair few feet behind us, trying to stop us from eavesdropping, but for normal people, we have surprisingly good hearing. Throughout the entire journey I was silently wishing that Tobi wasn't wearing a mask just so I could see his terrified face. Deidara looked absolutely _mortified_ that he'd been roped into the explanation, and by the time he had finished his extremely awkward speech, Tobi was literally whimpering to himself, and you could actually feel the anger and embarrassment rolling off the blonde terrorist in waves.

Hidan was pissing himself cackling at their misfortune, and once Deidara was done, he stomped up and delivered a roundhouse kick to Hidan's head, leaving the Jashinist sprawled on the floor screaming curses to high heaven and some very disturbed neighbours in his wake.

Eventually we arrived at the bus stop, and we had been waiting for about another five minutes with idle chatter when Sasori had started his bitching.

I knew the guy hated to be left waiting, but five minutes was just taking the piss.

"Sasori, shut up. You can see what time it's supposed to come, so just wait." I said.

Sasori glanced at his bare wrist. "Hmm, for all I know, it could be coming in half an hour's time, since my watch says it's quarter past freckle."

"Ha ha, very funny. Not the time for sarcasm, impatient asshole." I glared at the puppet-turned-human.

"Look! It's coming now, please don't start any arguments already. Katie, leave him alone." Mel pleaded.

"Just because you fangirl over him does not mean that I'll treat him like he's someone special, because he's not. Stupid Pinocchio. And anyway, he started it." I shot back, throwing my hand out for the bus.

Matt sighed. "How old are you, five?"

"Holy shit! What the fuck is that thing!" Hidan yelled as the blue Arriva double decker bus pulled up next to us. "I am not getting on that thing!"

The doors on the bus slowly slid open with a hiss of air, and Kisame punched Hidan in the face, knocking him out cold. "You've got no choice now, asshole."

Tobi seemed like he hadn't fully recovered from his earlier mind rape, so whimpered louder and tried to hide behind Deidara, who swatted him away.

"Pay up." I stuck my hand out towards Mel who scowled and dug in her pockets for some money, eventually finding it and putting it in my waiting palm.

"It's not like you need the money anyway." she muttered moodily. I stuck my tongue out at her and pocketed the cash.

Kakuzu slung Hidan's limp body over his shoulder and stepped onto the bus, looking back at us to sigh. "Are you idiots coming too, or have you decided to wait another ten minutes with Sasori whining?"

I laughed. "Ah, Kakuzu, you're so awesome. Come on."

Everyone else clambered onto the vehicle, with Tobi still clinging to Deidara, Mel annoyed at losing the bet, and everyone else just looking vaguely curious or awkward under the shocked stares of the bus driver and passengers.

"Mel, Matt, take the others up to the top deck, I'll meet you there." I called, getting a nod from the pair. I looked back to the driver with a false apologetic face. "I'm so sorry, but it's our charity day out. You see, we're from the mental ward in the local hospital, and we're on a day trip to town. They aren't dangerous, just a little slow. I hope that explains their appearance and behaviour." I handed the man £30. "Keep the change."

The man blinked a few times then shook his head to clear his mind. "O-Oh sure, no problem!"

I smiled as he pulled off and started climbing up the stairs. "Thanks!"

I reached the top of the stairs and flopped into one of the front seats, the one next to Mel. I propped my feet up on the bar in front of me and leaned against the window to see everyone else. Strangely enough, the Akatsuki had all sat in their pairs, even Tobi and Zetsu, but I could hear the plant man debating to himself whether he should eat Tobi or not from where I was sat. Matt just sat alone across from us.

"So this is called a 'bus'?" Pein asked suddenly, making everyone jump slightly.

I blinked. "What? Uh, yeah, this is a bus. It's a form of public transport. Since we don't have chakra, we can't do run everywhere like you do, so we use things like cars, bikes, buses and trains to get around if it's too far to walk." I pointed out the window to a car, then a train. "That there is a car. It's like a bus for five people, and that's a train, like a faster, bigger bus in a way."

Pein and Konan nodded in understanding.

"Hey Katie, shouldn't we set some rules for while we're out?" Matt called from his seat.

"I thought you hated rules." I said.

"I do, but I don't really want to see ten criminals causing mass panic in the middle of Liverpool city centre." he replied.

"He's got a point." Mel added.

"That, he does." I agreed. "Okay, since I'm the mature one, I'll set the rules. Number one, no going off on your own. If you do, you'll probably die of blood loss from being slammed by a bus. Number two, don't touch anything unless we say so. You could break it or set off alarms and shit. Number three, no fighting! The police are strict on fighting around these parts, so you'll probably end up in a cell for the night, and I am certainly not bailing you out for my party. Number four, if anyone starts having a go at you, or chatting you up, come find me and stay by me."

Hidan, who had just woken up, spoke. "Why the fuck should we stay by you?"

I hit him in the face with a shoe, much to the surprise of the others. "Because I'm scary, and nobody messes with a friend of an enraged ginger for their personal safety. Example A, Pein."

Pein smirked. "Agreed."

I lifted my hand for a high-five. "I don't care how childish this is, but high-five, Pein."

He looked at me like I'd grown another head.

"Come on! Ginger love!" I gave him the puppy-dog look.

He rolled his eyes but high-fived me quickly anyway, before looking back out of the window with a tiny flicker of amusement on his face.

I squealed, shocking everyone. "Hey Mel, I got a high-five from Pein! Be jealous, bitch!"

She frowned. "Yeah well, I glomped Deidara _and _Sasori."

"_Pein_. This is Pein, the leader of Akatsuki. Most badass ginger in possibly all anime ever, unless you count Hollow Ichigo and his bankai and shit," I stated. "I high-fived him. I think that's better than getting a hug off those wannabe artists."

Both said artists frowned and yelled at me. "Hey!"

"Katie, please don't get Sasori in a mood again. He pissed me off enough earlier." Kakuzu muttered.

"Fine, fine. We're nearly there anyway. About another five minutes. Hey Hidan, pass me my shoe back." I called.

He threw it back, aimed at my face. I lifted an arm in a block, let it bounce off onto Mel's lap, then picked it up and put it back on.

I smiled sweetly at the silver-haired zombie, wiggling my fingers in a flirtatious wave. "Thanks Hidan!"

Kisame started laughing. "Wow, Hidan. You're losing your touch! A civilian has better reflexes than you!" he teased.

Hidan scowled and clasped his fingers behind his head. "Fuck you, Fishy Boy. I had my guard down, and she was fucking expecting it."

"Plus, I'm not your average civilian." I interjected.

I got confused looks from everyone.

"What do you mean, 'not average'?" Itachi asked with slight curiosity.

"My mum's one of those feminist hippy types, so when I was younger, she made me take some kind of self-defence classes, but I liked it and started this weird martial art the same place. It's kind of like a strange version of karate, but I eventually got to a brown belt before I quit from boredom. I ended up practicing my fighting ever since, so I'm pretty good." I answered. "But enough about me. We're getting off next stop, and the shop is just around the corner and across the road, so let's go."

I pressed the bell and started down the stairs, the gang following. I smiled my thanks to the driver on my way off, and I think Hidan tried to convert him to the Way of Jashin before Kakuzu dragged him off by the hair.

I don't think I've ever seen a bus drive off faster that that one did.

We took everyone straight down the road towards the train station, but took a quick turn and crossed at the lights. I spotted a few girls giving some of the Akatsuki perverted looks (except for Zetsu and Tobi, I think they just ignored them, the poor guys), so I stood closer to them and glared daggers at the girls' backs.

Deidara chuckled from beside me. "Those looks you're giving could freeze Hell over. What's the problem, hm?"

"Oh nothing." I reassured him. "Just some bitches staring at what's mine."

"I hope you don't mean Dei or Sasori, because they are _mine_." Mel said, linking her arms with both disturbed ninja.

Sasori attempted to take his arm back, but Mel's scarily strong when she's holding on to something she wants. "Actually, we don't belong to anybody."

Mel grinned evilly. "You will do."

Both men shivered.

We turned one last corner and came to a large comic book store on the high street. It had windows along one wall, and a white sign was attached above the door that read 'Forbidden Planet'.

"Welcome to the Otaku Shop of Wonders!" I cheered, pushing open the door. "The cosplay shit's at the back, but you can look around once we've got your stuff, but _don't touch anything _or I'll permanently destroy your ability to reproduce. I'm not including Konan in that because I trust her not to do anything stupid, and I don't know any ways to sterilise her other than through drastic surgery."

Walking into the shop, the Akatsuki couldn't contain their gasps.

The store was full of different varieties of manga and anime, and random plushies hung from the ceiling on threads, some of themselves. There were rolled up posters in cardboard tubs, and wigs, costumes, keyrings, and piles of other untold Japanese merchandise and comic books dotted around the shop. A petite girl with dark skin and dark hair walked over to us, reading a manga she had in her hand. Her name tag read 'Alex'.

"Hello, how may I help you today?" Alex recited boredly, flipping a page in her manga.

I leaned in a little and lowered my voice to a whisper. "I need some more of your special pills, and three bottles of cheap vodka."

Alex's head shot up and her face broke into a grin. "Hey Katie! I've not seen you around here in ages! Who are... your... friends…" She trailed off at the end and her eyes widened.

"I think you already know." I grinned.

"Holy crap Katie! Those are either _the best _cosplayers I have ever seen, or you have the entire Akatsuki behind you." she giggled, then paused with a disgusted expression. "Actually, by the way that Hidan's scratching his ass in public, I'm guessing they're the real deal. How the hell did you find them?"

I sighed. "Kakuzu, slap Hidan for me."

Kakuzu grinned and backhanded Hidan in the face, knocking him flat onto the floor. "Sure thing."

"What was that for you fucking heathen whore!" he yelled, scrambling back to his feet.

"Scratching your ass in the middle of a shop is not acceptable you beast!" I shouted back.

He pouted. "Whatever, bitch."

I turned back to Alex. "Basically, we found these guys in a cardboard box as kittens. Before you say it, yes it's like one of those fucked-up fanfictions. I'm throwing a party for my birthday tonight, so I'll explain everything there if you come, okay?"

Alex grinned massively and hugged me. "Of course I'll come! It's my birthday too, so I wouldn't miss a chance for a good party for anything!"

"Yes!" I cheered. "Right, take us to the costumes, we need to get these some cloaks and rings so they fit in like one of the cosplayers that turn up to our parties."

"Alright then, follow me!"

Alex took us straight to the back of the store, and she, Matt and Mel were running round finding the right sizes for everyone before putting the stuff in a basket at my feet, while I leaned against a wall and watched the chaos from a safe distance.

I think the only reason I went was to keep everyone under control and to be the walking wallet.

Itachi, being the considerate guy he is, helped out a bit by finding his own cloak, then walked over to lean on the wall next to me.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "You said earlier that we were allowed to have a look around once we had our things. May I?"

I looked at him and nodded with a smile. "'Course! I'll go with you though, because there are some things to do with the show that we can't have you all knowing yet. You know, changing history and all."

He started walking off. "Hn."

Inside, my inner perverted fangirl was screaming and running around in circles, flailing her arms above her head. _Oh god, why does he have to be so hot?!_

I shook my head to clear my mind of Uchiha related fantasies and followed behind him instead. He stopped at a pile of plushies and plucked out a miniature of himself, raising an eyebrow at me.

I sniggered. "Aww, can't you see the resemblance? Look, they even got the Sharingan right, and the purple nail varnish!"

He rolled his eyes and dropped it back in the box, walking over to the manga. He scanned the shelves for anything that might be particularly interesting, but he couldn't seem to find anything after about a minute of searching. He carried on through the isles, keen eyes taking in his surroundings. Eventually he came to a stop by the posters, and flicked through them, shaking his head with disbelief at the sheer amount of the Akatsuki. Suddenly he froze and stared at one. I looked over and gasped.

He was looking at a poster of Sasuke in his Akatsuki robes.

I snatched his hand away and flipped to the next poster, a picture of Ichigo and Rukia from Bleach. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you'd see that. It must be a new poster because it certainly wasn't here the last time I came. I thought it was all okay in these parts."

Itachi stared down at me. "Hn, you weren't to know. However, could you explain why I just saw a picture of my little brother in an Akatsuki uniform?"

"Uhh..." I was torn. I scrunched my face up in thought. "Not just now. You don't need to know that yet, but I'll tell you in time, okay?"

He nodded slowly. "Alright."

Mel shouted over at that point. "Katie! We're done! Let's pay and get home to get the house all done up for tonight!"

I apologised to Itachi once more then yelled back to Mel. "Okay! Be over in a second!"

We both walked back to the tills, and Alex was grinning like mad (probably because of all the money she was making from us) and I noticed her eyes kept wandering over to Itachi.

"Wow, Itachi." she said, leaning over the counter a little and giving him a sultry look. "I bet you get this all the time, but you look so much like your brother!"

Kisame grinned. "I think everyone thinks so."

"Alex, stop flirting with the Uchiha." I sighed.

She looked at me innocently. "I am not flirting! I was making a simple _observation_, that's all."

I gave her a blank stare. "Yes, but when you're observing how much someone looks like the subject of your stalking, I think that's called flirting."

She put her hands up. "Alright, alright. Jeez. No need to get defensive. It's not like he belongs to you. Anyway, that's £179.90, please."

Matt whistled. "Ho-ly fuck. Those are some _expensive _costumes."

I shrugged. "Could be worse, I saw some on eBay for £39.99 each."

Kakuzu's eyes looked like they were going to fall out of their sockets and roll across the floor when I pulled the wad of cash I'd picked up earlier out of my bag.

I slapped the notes down on the counter and made everyone carry a bag each once I'd got my change.

"Thanks Alex, party starts at about 7:30pm tonight, hope you can make it!" I called on my way out.

Alex waved. "Okay! Thanks for inviting me, I'll see you there!"

Mel and Matt waved goodbye and we hopped back on the bus to get back home, our bunch of misfits trailing behind.

**-x-**

_A/N: No me gusta filler._

_I've got a basic idea of what's going to happen in the next three chapters or so, and how it's going to end, but if anyone has any suggestions, funny moments, plot twists or pairings they want to see included, don't hesitate to include it in a comment or PM._

_Also, to clear up any confusion, I write dates in UK format, i.e. DD/MM/YY_

_Next Chapter: Katie's party finally happens! It's taken two chapters of build-up, but here it is!_

**Random Fact #4**: _In real life, the people who inspired Katie and Alex's creation do share the same birthday, but Alex is four years older, and lives in a different continent._


	7. Chapter Seven: 99 Bottles of Beer

_A/N:For my fellow filler haters, this one actually has some plot development! Yay!_

_Well, kind of._

_Also, for you foreigners (no offense intended), there's no underage drinking in this chapter. In the UK, where this is set, the legal age for home drinking is 5, however stupid that is, and all characters and OCs mentioned so far in this story are 16 or above._

_Here's to chapter 7!_

_Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, let's just say the Akatsuki uniform would be a lot more revealing, if you catch my drift ;) *perv face*_

**-x-**

**(First Person, Katie)**

Weirdly enough, the journey home had a lot less bickering than the trip there.

Hidan didn't get knocked out again, Tobi didn't get eaten by a cannibalistic plant man (men?), and I didn't threaten anyone with my arsenal of extremely creative and detailed death threats.

Okay, maybe I did once or twice, but that's a lot less than usual, so you get my point.

Once we arrived back at my mini mansion of a house, we dumped our bags on my bedroom floor, and Mel and I chased everyone downstairs while we changed into our old clothes to stop any dirt getting on our party stuff.

Seeing Mel, Matt, and the entire Akatsuki lounging in one of my front rooms and obeying all of my orders for fear of banned booze and being ripped to shreds and fed to Zetsu made me feel like Pein for a moment.

I'm telling you now, that is an awesome feeling.

If you ever have the opportunity to feel like that, take it and run as fast as you can before you get caught by the Universal Pull.

I instructed the male minions to clean up the shit around the house and stick up streamers and banners, while those of the superior gender (1) were tasked with blowing up balloons and sorting the food and drinks.

Obviously, the girls making food started up a string of kitchen jokes from our favourite immortal albino, but yet again he was silenced by a shoe to the face.

I think that's getting to be a bit of a habit.

Surprisingly, neither me nor Mel had flung the black Converse trainer this time. Everyone looked around for the culprit, and we all had a double take when we spotted a scowling Konan sat next to Pein, her right shoe missing. The room fell silent until I burst out laughing and declared her my new favourite Akatsuki member. She giggled and blushed before she had to dodge the returning shoe.

I have to admit though, for an airheaded egomaniac like Hidan, some of those jokes were pretty funny for being made up on the spot. The guy would probably get a top ten joke on Sickipedia.

I finished up my speech before dumping a bag of the stuff they'd need on the red rug in the middle of the floor and heading off into the kitchen to start on the food. My fridge was stuffed with boxes, packets and tubs of different ready-made party foods, and I took all of it out and set them on the table for sorting later.

I didn't buy so much ready-made crap because I can't cook, quite the opposite actually. I'm a pretty good cook, but I always buy pre-made food for parties because I'm too lazy to put effort into making food for people I hardly know to bring it back up the morning after, so everyone was stuck with crisps, pizza, chicken satays and other shit I bought cheap from the local ASDA.

I reached into the chest freezer to dig out the elusive pizzas. I leaned further in and grinned when I saw the small pile of white cardboard boxes in the far corner. Shoving a few bags of frozen peas and curly fries off of the top, I dragged out the boxes and was about to shut the freezer again when I felt a pair of eyes on me. I turned to see Hidan in the doorway with a lewd grin on his face. I frowned.

"If you're looking like that because you've just been ogling my ass when I bent over, you'll be spending the night keeping the ice cubes company." I said, pointing into the freezer.

His grin grew. "Hey, it's not my fault! Yours isn't too bad, and I've been surrounded by fucking guys and a bitch who would stick Pein onto me if I even tried to look at her."

I blushed and frowned even more. "Whatever. Just remember, if I catch you perving on me again, you won't be getting any alcohol tonight, and you'll have a broken nose to boot."

He seemed to ignore my threat and his eyes lit up. "Alcohol?"

I rolled my eyes at him and placed the pizza boxes on the counter. "Yeah, alcohol. The magical liquid that makes people as unemotional as Pein declare their love to random hobos. When your dad's best friend owns a warehouse full of the stuff, you tend to have a good supply of it. Right now my basement's like a mini brewery."

Hidan looked thoughtful. "I think I could fucking like living here, bitch."

I hugged him with a snicker. "We're too awesome to not like living with. Well, except for Matt."

I heard an annoyed shout from the hallway. "I heard that!"

"I have no regrets!" I called back, dropping from the Jashinist.

He shook his head with a smirk. "Whatever. Just get back to the fucking food."

I smiled. "Of course. And you get back to helping Pein and Itachi."

He sighed and turned back down the hall, muttering under his breath about 'Jashin-damned women'.

I laughed and walked back over to the freezer and slammed the lid shut, grabbing the pizzas and shoving them in the oven. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I walked out of the kitchen and into the main front room where Tobi, Kisame, Deidara, Konan and Mel were decorating. I smiled at the sight of the balloon Mel was blowing up shooting from her mouth and flying round for a few seconds until it smacked Deidara in the face. She started giggling with Konan as he turned around slowly, visible eye twitching.

"Mel, that's the second time that has happened today, hmm. Are you doing that on purpose or something?" he said.

Mel giggled even more. "Nooo..."

Tobi popped his masked face out from under a small pile of balloons. "Maybe the balloons just like Deidara-senpai?"

Thinking about his mask made me wonder; where did he get that thing from anyway? It's not like we just had an orange mask hanging around the place.

And where was Zetsu's plant thing around his neck?

Some things can never be explained, I guess.

Before Deidara had a chance to attack the living lollipop, I cleared my throat. "No attacking Tobi, Deidara. It's not nice." The terrorist pouted and looked away. "Anyway, I only came in to see how things were going, and other than Mel's flirting, it looks good."

Mel blushed. "I'm not flirting!"

I chuckled. "Konan believes me, don't you?"

She finished tying her balloon and looked up from the sofa at me with a smirk. "I'm not saying anything."

Mel gasped. "Traitor!"

Kisame pinned one last streamer to the wall then turned to me with a sharp-toothed grin. "Hey Katie, I think we're done here now. Anything else we have to do?"

He was right, the room did look done. Streamers hung from the light, doorframes, mirror and windowsill, and a large purple banner that read '17 Today' was blu-tacked to one of the walls. Someone had even hoovered and done a bit of dusting. Overall, it looked perfectly tidy, even though it was just going to get totally trashed later on. The only thing left was the food and balloons.

"There's one thing you can do. Tobi, Kisame, take some of the balloons and give them to the guys in the hall and the other room." Both men started scooping up the balloons and walked - or skipped in Tobi's case - out into the hall. I pointed at Mel and Deidara. "You two can stick the remaining ones up in here, while Konan can blow up a few more then help me in the kitchen. When you've all finished, go get ready then do whatever."

Mel saluted. "Yes, ma'am."

I flipped her the bird before stalking back into the hall. I could hear swearing coming from the other front room so went to check it out. I had to suppress a laugh at what I saw. Pein and Itachi were busy calmly sticking up balloons on the walls, completely ignoring Kakuzu holding a writhing Hidan in the air by his throat.

"Get... fuck... off... heathen!" he choked, scrabbling at the hands around his neck.

"No, you deserve it. Little fucker." Kakuzu growled.

I stepped in when I saw Hidan's lips turning blue, even though I knew he couldn't die anyway, thanks to my previous experimentation. "Now, now, ladies. Save it for the bedroom."

Pein snorted and Kakuzu dropped Hidan in shock with a loud thud.

"What the fuck?!" Hidan wheezed, from having the remaining air knocked out of him at his less-than-graceful landing. "That's fucking disgusting!"

I smiled warmly. "Don't worry. Being gay isn't a bad thing, and we'll all support you both, even if your lifestyle choice is different to ours. Love is love, right?"

"We're not fucking gay!" They both yelled.

"No, you're fucking each other." I corrected with a wink.

"You're such a bitch, you know that?"

"So I've been told, my dear Kuzu-kun." I replied, smirking.

Kakuzu clenched his fists at his sides. "I seem to remember that I made you promise not to call me that."

I flipped my hair over my shoulder as I turned to leave. "I never _promised_, I just _said_ I wouldn't. Difference. Anyway, pizza calls! Finish up with the balloons then come out into the kitchen." I ordered over my shoulder.

I heard a few grunts of acknowledgement so continued through the door to almost run into Matt.

"Jesus, asshole! Watch where you're waddling!" I muttered.

He looked confused and moved his hair out of his eyes. "Waddling? Since when was I fat?"

"Since now." I childishly stuck my tongue out.

He started climbing the stairs. "Whatever. I only came to let you know the pizza's done, so get your ginger ass in the kitchen before it burns."

"Will do. I was actually on my way over when I walked into a flab wall, so if it's burnt, it's your fault." I said.

Matt glared. "Wall of flab? Did you walk into a mirror or something?"

Bitch has quick replies.

"You know, if I wanted a comeback, I'd wipe it off the back of your mum's throat."

"At least my mum gets some action, unlike you."

I bristled and glared at the chuckling boy.

"You may have won the battle, but you will never win the war." I hissed, stalking into the kitchen.

Our arguments are the best.

When I first met Matt, we got along really well (minus the times we were moody and took out our anger on each other) probably due to our shared obsession with anime and other shit. We obviously still do get along since he's staying in my house, but nowadays our conversations usually consist of little jokes towards each other, completely opposite to the conversations he has with Mel. They have their innuendo battles, we have our insult battles, and that's how our friendship with Matt works.

I have no idea how, but it does. I mean, we've been friends for four years now, so we must be doing something right.

I shoved an oven glove on my hand and removed the now-cooked pizzas from the oven, shutting it with a gentle kick behind me. I put the pair onto some plates on the table, and grabbed the pizza cutter from a drawer. I lifted the blade and was about to cut the first disc of deliciousness, when Konan walked in with an armful of balloons.

"Hi Katie, brought the balloons!" she said cheerfully.

"So I see. Just put them over there for a minute, we need to cut these pizzas first, because I want a slice." I replied.

She nodded and put the balloons in a corner, and I passed her the round pizza cutter. She held it like it was some sort of rabid spider that was about to eat her face. I gave her a confused look, and then it fell into place in my head.

They didn't have pizza in their world, so how would they know what a pizza cutter was?

"Jesus Christ, you've never had pizza." I gasped. "You have never _lived_, woman."

I took the cutter back hurriedly and cut two slices of the pepperoni pizza, handing one to her and starting on one myself. She mimicked my actions and took a bite, and I could almost see the love blossoming in her eyes.

I grinned. "Good?"

She took another big bite and nodded quickly. "Thish ish derishus!"

"Totally. Do me a favour and don't let Hidan or Zetsu near these, or there'll be none left within seconds." I said.

She nodded again and demolished the last of her slice. "The food here is so different to ours! All we really have back home is things with rice, and it makes a change to have something like this. What's on it?"

I explained the basic anatomy of a pepperoni pizza to a fascinated Konan for the next five minutes, and I roped her into helping me sort some crisps into bowls and putting them on tables around the bottom floor of my house.

We laid out the rest of the shit on the kitchen table with the help of Itachi and Pein once they were finished with their room, since apparently Kakuzu and Hidan were bickering again and it was pissing them off.

I don't think the phrase 'fighting like an old married couple' can be any more perfect than when used to describe the Zombie Brothers.

Stretching my back, I strode into the more used front room, where yet again, everyone was sat on the furniture, waiting for orders. "Right children, we're almost good to go. All that's left to do now is grab some booze from downstairs and get changed, so let's get dressed first. You all know where your outfits are, so get off your asses and put them in your costumes."

A few murmurs of compliance went through the room, and a few people started standing up, so I took that as my cue to leave. Heading up to my room, I could hear light and quick footsteps approaching, and automatically knew it was Mel following me up to get ready herself, so I spoke over my shoulder without looking back: "Any idea what you're wearing?"

She caught up and directed her blue eyes to me. "Yeah. Probably that black dress I got last year, I still like it."

I snorted. "Black dress? Which one? You must have about a million in the wardrobe that's here, never mind at your flat."

Mel rolled her eyes. "Oh shush. You have an unnecessary amount of blue things in your wardrobe, and you don't see me moaning about it."

"True." I laughed, opening my bedroom door once we reached the top of the stairs.

Mel squeaked.

"What's up?" I asked.

She shoved her phone in my face, and I stared at it, a little cross-eyed because of the close proximity. "I repeat, what?"

"_The time!_" she cried, tapping the screen frantically where the clock was. "It's 6PM!"

I cursed. That gave us just over an hour to get ready. We needed more time!

I know what you're thinking: 'Whoa, chill. You've got an hour, you'll be fine!'

No. If you could see what we looked like, and knew the time it takes us to get ready to even go to the corner shop for a bottle of milk and a loaf, you'd understand the severity of our situation.

Simultaneously, we ran to our respective wardrobes and began digging through them in a frenzy for whatever outfits we wanted to find.

Unlike Mel, I had no fucking clue what to wear, so I grabbed the clothes nearest to me.

I smirked.

Thank God for the gift of brilliant timing.

I turned and saw what Mel was holding. I remembered the dress she was taking off the hanger, and my smirk grew.

When the boys saw us, they wouldn't know what hit them.

**-x-**

**(Third Person)**

Thanks to their ninja speed, the Akatsuki were completely dressed and sat around the front room boredly, since they had nothing to do but wait for the girls to be finished.

"Ahhh..." Hidan sighed, sprawling out on the sofa, dropping his feet and lower legs on Kakuzu's lap in the process. "I feel so much more fucking normal now I'm back in a cloak, even if it's not mine."

Kakuzu harshly shoved his legs off him, causing his partner to roll off the sofa with a muffled thud.

"Fucker..." Hidan muttered, sitting back up and rubbing his shoulder.

"Matt?" Deidara began. Said geek looked up from his game to glance at the bomber. "Is there anything we can do while we wait? I'm bored, yeah."

Matt squinted in thought. "Uh, I think Katie said something about the booze from the basement earlier. You could go bring some of that up I guess."

Deidara shrugged and stood up. "Sure, why not. Anyone else coming, hmm?"

In the end, Deidara, Sasori, Kisame and Kakuzu went to fetch the boxes. Hidan offered, but Pein refused to let him go.

"Hidan, knowing you, you'd probably get drunk just from looking at the alcohol." he had said with a smirk.

Hidan spluttered and protested, but he knew he couldn't argue with the ginger on that one.

It was true; despite his tough guy act, Hidan could get absolutely plastered from just a couple of bottles of beer.

He was pretty much the definition of lightweight.

The group sent to get the drinks staggered into the room, each of them with at least one box of a various alcoholic drink in their arms, and Kisame had a box of soft drinks too. They all dropped them clumsily on the carpet before Kakuzu ripped each of them open with his bare hands.

One of the five boxes was filled with variously coloured bottles of WKD, and Deidara and Sasori set about arranging them on the table, while Kakuzu and Kisame pulled out some cans and bottles of beer, and a couple of litres of vodka to add to the pile. The final box was packed with soft drinks, so the bottles of Coke and lemonade were left in the kitchen next to a stack of plastic cups.

Just as they sat back down on the sofa, Katie's door creaked open, and the men could hear the girls' excited voices floating down the stairs. Footsteps soon followed, and the two teenagers appeared in the doorway soon after, both giggling to themselves.

Hidan whistled. "You guys scrub up pretty fucking well!"

Katie sent him a wink. "So do you, now you've actually got something that could be classed as a shirt on."

"Agreed." Kakuzu grunted from the corner of the room.

During their short conversation, Mel was feeling more and more nervous. She could feel two sets of eyes on her, and she had a pretty good idea who they were, and this knowledge made her even more awkward. She kept her own pair glued to the black stilettos on her feet, and twirled the hem of her dress between her fingers. Katie nudged her in the side with her elbow.

"What's up with you?" she asked quietly. "You're not talking or being strange, which means either someone just died and I don't know about it or you're sick."

Mel lifted her gaze from her shoes to Katie's face. "They're staring at me."

Katie just shrugged. "Of course they are! You heard Hidan, we look hot, what do you expect? Enjoy the attention, because I know you love it really."

She blushed. "I don't!" she paused. "Okay maybe a little, but still, if I look up, I'll look at one of them, and it'll piss off the other one-"

She was interrupted by Katie clapping her hands together. She felt the men's attention shift over to her friend, and she internally sighed in relief. Thank whatever God there was up there for distractions. "Okay guys, it has..." she checked the clock. "Just turned 7PM, so the first guests should be on their way over in about fifteen minutes, I think. Rules: No fighting, no fucking, no breaking things, and most of all, no killing." Hidan cursed. "Most of these people are my friends, so I'll snap your necks if you dare to touch any of them before you even have time to say 'Budweiser'. Got it?"

Everyone nodded quickly in understanding.

"The scary thing is that I could believe she'd go through with that threat." Sasori muttered, folding his arms.

"You learn fast, Pinocchio." Katie grinned. The ex-puppet glared ice daggers in return. "Also, here's the bedroom arrangements just in case I get too drunk to tell you all later. There are six bedrooms in total, so that means you'll all be sharing a room with at least one person. Kakuzu, Hidan, you guys get the room on the left at the end of the hall, and Pein and Konan can stay next door in Demi's room. If you don't want to die in this world, don't touch the posters. Tobi and Zetsu get the last one on that side, then Mel, Sasori and Deidara can share Mel's room, since you guys are her favourites," Mel punched the air and whooped loudly. "And since we're talking about favourites and I _refuse_ to share with Matt, Itachi's with me, and Kisame's stuck with the basement dweller."

Matt folded his arms angrily. "For the last time, I'm not a fucking basement dweller! I don't even _have _a goddamn basement!"

Katie waved a hand dismissively. "Details, details. So, is that okay with you all? Good."

The doorbell rang, and the red haired girl quickly sped over to the mirror and fixed the collar on her floral top, and removed a little bit of stray eyeliner with her thumb. With a small smirk of approval at her reflection, she headed out into the hallway to answer the door.

"Hey Alex! Glad you could make it!" she grinned, giving the girl a brief hug.

"Like I said, wouldn't miss this for the world." Alex replied after they had pulled away, holding out a bag.

Katie took the plastic bag and peeked inside, before letting out a squeal of joy and squeezing Alex to death.

"Thank you thank you thank you so fucking much!" she cried. "It's adorable, I love you so much twin!"

Alex laughed. "Don't worry about it. You've wanted an Akamaru plushie for what seems like forever, so I figured you'd like one since we just got a batch of them in."

"Ah, you know me so well. Anyway, come in, everyone's in the front room on the left." Katie turned back to where she came from and headed for the kitchen to grab another slice of pizza, leaving Alex to make her way to the other guests.

"Hey guys." she greeted once she arrived.

Grunts were her reply, along with a pair of hyperactive 'hi's from Tobi and Mel.

"Tch." she tutted. "Men."

**-x-**

It didn't take long for the other guests, invited or not, to turn up. By around nine, the bottom floor was jam-packed with people, and loud rock music was blaring everywhere you went; you couldn't even escape from it in the bathrooms. The Akatsuki had received quite a few compliments on their 'costumes', and a few of the more sociable members were actually joining in and mingling with the crowds of people that swarmed every room, while others had either hidden themselves upstairs in their bedrooms, like Zetsu, Pein and Kakuzu had.

"...And then I was like, man, you're just fucking pissy because your prick's so small you've got to masturbate with tweezers," Hidan snickered.

The random guy he was talking to laughed and pointed his beer bottle clumsily at the Jashinist, sloshing a little out of the end as he did so. "Heh, you're a - hic - a funny guy."

"I'm fucking glad you think so," Hidan grinned. He lifted his own bottle and clinked it against the other man's. "Cheers."

At that point, a drunken Mel skipped past, singing loudly and out of tune to a nursery rhyme all grown up. "99 bottles of beer on the floor, 99 bottles of beer! Pick one up," she picked up a new bottle from a table next to her and opened it. "Knock it down," she gulped it down in one go. "98 bottles of beer on the floor!"

In the next room, Katie was a little bit more intoxicated than her friend, so was staggering around a little in the throng of party-goers. "Melissha! Oi! Melissha? Where - hic - are you, betch?"

She stood in the doorway and waved spastically above her head to get the emo's attention. "Come look at Sashori! So funny - hic!"

Melissa giggled and followed Katie through the crowd, to a more tightly packed section surrounding the dining table and one of the giant speakers that had been set up around the house. A loud rock song was pounding out of it, and a clearly drunk-out-of-his-mind Sasori was stood on the table, swaying randomly off the beat, and singing the wrong lyrics completely out of time to the tune.

Deidara, who was still quite sober, was tugging on his Danna's sleeve, obviously trying to get him down from the table. "Danna, un! Come on, just get down, you're making a scene, yeah!"

Sasori yanked his arm away, knocking himself off-balance slightly, and glared down at the blond with glassy eyes. "Fuck no! It'sh been over a - hic - decade since I could get even _get _drunk 'coz of that damn puppet shit, and I'm making the mosht of it! I'm having fun, Dei, come up here too!"

A new track started booming from the speaker, and Sasori began his swaying/dancing again. Deidara sighed and tried again, and pulled on Sasori's cloak a little harder, but it was obviously too much for the redheaded puppet master, and he toppled off the table to land on his partner with an 'oof'.

Sasori giggled and looked down at a pissed off Deidara. "Oh hey Dei! Didn't see you there for a sec, sorry, heh."

Someone wolf-whistled from the crowd. "Kiss, kiss, kiss!"

Mel darted forward and rolled Sasori back onto the floor, where he continued his giggling.

She wobbled a bit as she helped Deidara back to his feet, before squeaking and recoiling her hand quickly. "What the - hic - _fuck _was that?!"

Deidara chuckled and scratched the back of his head sheepishly, avoiding eye contact with both the confused girl in front of him and his oblivious roommate. "Uh, my hand-mouths get a little, uh… 'out of control' when I have alcohol, hmm. Sorry about that."

Instead of being disgusted like he expected, Mel laughed. "Don't worry about it, I think they're - hic - awesome. I'm used to Demi licking me every now and again anyway, hehe."

"She licks you?" Deidara asked with a raised eyebrow.

Melissa grinned. "Yep! She's _really _weird, but awesome, like your mouths!"

He returned the grin with one of his own. "Well I'm glad you think so, un!"

Mel's grin calmed to a small smile. "So, wanna dance with me?"

"Uh, sure," he replied.

"Come on then - hic -!"

She grabbed his wrist and dragged him into the next room where there was less people, not even noticing or caring that they'd completely abandoned Katie and the still-giggling-on-the-floor Sasori.

**-x-**

A few hours later, the guests who weren't unconscious on the sofas started to file out and go home, each with their own story of the absolute craziness of their night.

Surprisingly, the biggest party animal of the night was Sasori, since even after he went over the normal level of alcohol consumption that would cause any other person to pass out, he carried on with his strangeness, eventually being dragged to his room by Deidara, who ended up having to take Melissa too once she had hit her limit.

Everyone's guess was that his new body was just a bit different to anyone else's, thanks to the jutsu that created it.

Tobi was locked in his and Zetsu's room by Pein earlier in the night because some idiot guest had given him a shot of a highly alcoholic drink, and since it was his first drink, it had completely tipped him over the edge and sent him even more hyper than usual. He annoyed that many people around the house with his spastic dancing that the ginger leader was forced to take his drastic measures.

Katie, being the good host she is, was stumbling around the bottom floor of the house kicking out any remaining people who were unwelcome, and shouting at the ones who refused until they gave in. Eventually, pretty much everyone who could move on their own had left, leaving her to collapse on the sofa with a sigh.

"What a night..." she slurred, letting her eyelids droop over.

Just as she was about to drift off into much-needed sleep, someone softly called her name.

"Katie?"

She slowly peeled them open again, ready to spit a mouthful of abuse at whoever dared to interrupt her, but frowned in confusion of the blurry image of the person in front of her. "'Tachi? Is that you?"

The black haired ninja nodded. "Yes. I just came to see where you were, since it's rude to stay in your room when you're down here."

Katie smiled sleepily up at Itachi. "Always a gentleman, heh. Alright then, help me up."

She lifted a hand weakly, and the Uchiha took it to help her to her feet. She straightened out her clothes clumsily before kicking off her shoes and attempting to shuffle out of the room without swaying, which she failed at. "Come on, follow me up, 'kay?"

He nodded and followed behind her as she made her way slowly up the stairs, before they both arrived on the landing, where loud snoring could be heard coming from down the hall. Katie giggled quietly. "I bet that's Matt - hic -"

"No, it sounds like Hidan," Itachi replied with a smirk. "He kept Kakuzu up all night when he first arrived."

"Heh, bet that's - hic - not the only thing he kept him up with," Katie sniggered as she pushed open the door and stumbled into the bedroom.

She tottered over to the bed and flopped down on top of it, wiggling under the covers. She closed her eyes before rolling over to face him looking highly awkward standing at the side of the bed. She smirked and patted the space next to her. "You can get in too you know. The sofas are full of - hic - randomers, so there's nowhere else but the floor." When she saw his expression, she added. "I don't bite you know."

"Alright," he said quietly. He turned to switch off the light before padding back over, taking off his cloak and shoes and getting under the covers, making sure to lie as close to the edge as he could without falling off. Closing his onyx eyes, he heard a low murmur from the next pillow.

"G'night, 'Tachi."

"Goodnight, Katie."

**-x-**

(1) Katie isn't one of those crazy feminist people, she was being sarcastic, haha

_A/N: And so that concludes chapter 7!_

**Random Fact #6: **_Katie absolutely despises tracksuits, and thinks that anyone who wears them for anything other than going for a run/to the gym should be thrown into a volcano filled with a combination of acid and lava._

_See you next time! ^.^_


	8. Chapter Eight: Missing Memories

_A/N:_****_Hope it's a good one, enjoy chapter 8!_

_Italics are thoughts._

_**Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto. Anyone fancy giving me it?**_

**-x-**

**(First Person, Katie)**

There's only one reason why I dislike my parties sometimes:

The morning after.

You know that horrible feeling when you wake up and can't remember a thing about the night before, and you get that pounding headache that's threatening to split your skull in two, and sometimes, if you're particularly unlucky, a massive wave of nausea that hits you as soon as you attempt to sit up in bed, or wherever you passed out?

Well yeah, that's what I'm talking about, and nine times out of ten, I wake up with a stiff neck from sleeping in some messed up position in some shitty excuse for a bed to boot.

Lovely.

Thankfully, it seems that someone was watching over me at my birthday party, because I woke up the next morning comfortable, warm, and blissfully unaware of what had happened at the party, but I still somehow knew it was one _hell _of an awesome night.

I sighed happily to myself and shifted a little as I wracked my fuzzy brain for anything that might be important for later that day. My pillow was surprisingly comfy, so as I slowly woke up, I snuggled a little more into it.

Wait, _what?!_

My blue eyes snapped open to reveal that my head was lying on a piece of black cotton, and as I slowly raised my gaze further up the breathing thing, I saw fishnet, a necklace, skin, and finally a pale face framed with soft black hair.

I gasped and shot out of the bed, startling the person awake. He sat up himself and rubbed his eyes tiredly, before turning to look at me curiously. His voice came out thick from sleep as he asked, "What?"

"What?" I repeated with wide eyes. "_What?!_ Itachi fucking _Uchiha _is in my bed!"

Itachi blinked slowly. "And?"

I spluttered. "A-And I was lying on you! Because you're in my bed! Why are you even in my bed in the first place?!"

"You offered, and I took your offer. You don't need to think anything of it, you just got drunk and told me you 'don't bite'."

I could feel the heat suddenly rush up my neck to my face, and I bet that if I was bald, you'd see that my scalp was cherry red too. Thankfully, I'm not. For once, I was grateful for my hair.

If I looked up, I would've seen that Itachi was still lying in the bed, smirking slightly at my embarrassment like the sadistic Uchiha bastard he is.

I chuckled nervously. "I said that? Uh, what else did I say?"

He shrugged again. "Not much. Just that Matt snores a lot."

Oh thank god for that.

I was genuinely worried for my own dignity for a moment there.

You see, I'm one of those 'honest drunks'. You know the type; that one person, usually a girl trying to drown her sorrows in booze, sat by the bar spouting random embarrassing secrets about themselves and their friends/family, and crying about their relationship problems every now and again.

Well yeah, I'm that chick sat by the bar with her hair usually resembling something like a bird's nest and makeup smudged all the way down her face.

Embarrassing, I know, but not as embarrassing as some of the things I come out with when I'm in a state like that. Mel and Demi, being the bitches they are, have got me completely wasted on more than one occasion just to hear some of my deepest, darkest secrets.

But don't worry, I got my revenge.

However, that's another story.

"Ah, right," I smiled. "Well, uh, sorry for, you know, freaking out on you at," I checked the clock on the side table. "Eleven o' clock in the morning. I just didn't expect to see you there, thanks to the booze."

"Hn," he smirked. "Do you mind if I use the bathroom first? I doubt I'll be going back to sleep now."

"Nah, knock yourself out," I yawned and stretched my arms over my head. "I'll go wake up the rest of the idiots then start on breakfast while I wait. Fingers crossed at least someone has a headache so I can piss them off by shouting."

Itachi's smirk grew and he sat up and slipped out of the bed gracefully.

Yeah, a fully-grown man who no doubt had at least a little bit of a hangover was still able to get out of bed _gracefully_ before it even turned noon.

That is how genuinely awesome Itachi Uchiha is.

He rubbed his eyes again as he passed me on his way to the en-suite, and gave me a tiny smile. "Good morning Katie, by the way."

I returned his smile with one of my own. "Yeah, morning to you too."

As I padded out of the room and started down the stairs, I began thinking up evil ways to get the rest of the guests out of bed because they ate all of my favourite crisps at the party. Just as I got to the bottom step, I froze at an idea, and a sinister look crossed my face.

_Perfect._

Unfortunately for him, Zetsu was lounging on the sofa staring at the ceiling when I appeared in the doorway with my scheming-face on.

He turned to look at me and blinked at my expression. "Um, good morning? **Why are you looking at us like that? Have we got something on our face?**"

I relaxed my face a little, but I kept the grin firmly in place. Good hangover torturing plans always need the grin, no matter what. "Why yes, my dear Zetsu, it is a good morning. And I didn't mean to creep you out, I just had an awesome idea."

"Awesome idea?" both sides echoed, white side raising a brow.

Well, it might've been both, but thanks to me not being able to see anything but his eye on the black side, I couldn't tell.

I giggled maniacally and rubbed my hands together. "The fucking King of all awesome ideas. It involves things that make loud noises, duct tape, hangovers, and heavy sleepers. Wanna help?"

"Do we? **We've been waiting for this moment since Hidan joined the Akatsuki**," the plant man joined me in grinning devilishly, except that his smile was just that bit more badass thanks to his pointy teeth.

"Great!" I chirped. "I'm gonna grab a cereal bar first, so follow me through the kitchen and we can get to the shed in the garden that way."

Zetsu started getting up from the sofa, so I spun on my heel and almost skipped to the kitchen in my good mood.

I love revenge.

**-x-**

**(Third Person!)**

Katie and Zetsu returned from the shed soon after, Katie giggling through the remaining half of a cereal bar shoved in her mouth. They both had armfuls of supplies, and while they were collecting them, the red haired seventeen-year-old had explained the plan of action to her accomplice.

Judging from the look on his face once she had finished, Zetsu approved.

Before they started setting up their wake-up traps, Katie remembered Itachi was in her bathroom, so carefully made her way back in before any of her victims woke up prematurely. Itachi was sat on the edge of the bed towel-drying his wet hair when she walked in with the seemingly ever-present sinister grin still stretched across her face.

"Hello Katie," he greeted. "Is there anything you needed?"

She shook her head. "Not really, just that I think it'd be best for you to come downstairs after you're done with your hair, because one, the hairdryer's down there, and two, I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear what's coming next."

"...Alright," Itachi nodded, eyeing her cautiously.

"See you down there then. Also, hurry up or you'll get the full blast of our alarms," she called as she slipped through the doorway.

Itachi raised an eyebrow and made to ask what she meant by that, but decided against it, sighing and finishing off his hair.

He'd been around her long enough to know it wasn't even worth the confusion it would undoubtedly bring.

Outside the bedroom, Zetsu was waiting for her with the supplies at his feet. "So, **how're we gonna do this?**"

"Basically," Katie began. "I'm going to sneak into Mel's and Matt's rooms with these air horns and stick them to the underside of their beds by the pillows with some duct tape," she held up said items. "While you do the same in the other rooms except for Pein, Konan and Tobi's, because unlike me, you have stealth on your side, and Matt and Mel are extremely heavy sleepers anyway. I don't need to worry about the ninjas in their rooms because Sasori, Kisame and Deidara will probably be the same thanks to the amount of alcohol they had last night. Because these horns are the kind that are set off by pulling out a pin like a grenade, I'll tie some string around the pin and bring it under their doors so we can set them all off at the same time. I'll try to pull hard enough to snap the string so they won't be able to follow it to the horn, just for those little extra minutes of torture."

She ended her explanation with a proud huff and put her hands on her hips.

Zetsu nodded in understanding, but picked up a key from the pile of prank supplies. "What's the key for then?"

Katie cackled. "That's the best part! We can lock them in their rooms with no escape!"

"**I like it.** Don't you think that's a little harsh? I mean, they wouldn't do this to us, would they? **Don't forget that time Deidara woke us up by blowing up his bedroom at 4am. **Oh yeah. Never mind, let's do this!"

Her smile returned full-force and she patted Zetsu on the back. "Now that's more like it! Come on, grab your shit and get started before they wake up."

Zetsu nodded and picked up two air horns, a roll of duct tape, and a roll of string. Katie followed suit and they both silently entered the bedrooms of Mel, Deidara and Sasori, and Kakuzu and Hidan.

Katie left the door ajar behind her, and slowly tiptoed across the wooden floor towards the bed, trying not to snicker at the position of the trio. Sasori was lying on his stomach on the very edge of the bed with one of his arms dangling off of the side and his drooling mouth agape, looking very little like the 35-year-old ninja he really was. Deidara and Mel were occupying the other side and part of the middle of the bed, in a position much like the one Katie woke up to a few minutes earlier.

Katie internally aww'd at the pair, but shook her head and got back to work. She tightly knotted the string around the pin and taped the can directly underneath the pillows before speeding out of the room with the roll of string still attached, locking the door behind her. She giggled deviously under her breath as she unravelled the string until it was long enough to be pulled at the same time as the other lengths, before she snipped it with a pair of scissors. Grabbing another can, Katie repeated it but in Matt's room, and Zetsu did the same with his rooms. Soon enough, the doors were all securely locked, and the pieces of string were lying in front of the grinning pair. Just as Zetsu was about to speak, Itachi emerged from their room and raised an eyebrow.

"What are you two doing?" he asked.

"Waking everyone up. **This is going to be the funniest thing I've done in years!**" Zetsu chuckled.

Katie tossed Itachi a pair of foam earplugs. "Stick these in unless you want your headache ten times worse than it is."

She did the same to Zetsu then put in her own pair. She glanced at the Uchiha watching her and the plant man. "You staying to watch?"

Itachi shrugged. "I suppose. It's not like I have anything better to do, and Deidara was irritating me a bit last night, so he deserves what's coming for him. What is the string for?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," she said, picking up two pieces of string while Zetsu grabbed the others. "Ready, Zetsu?"

"**Hell yes**," he replied.

Katie nodded and counted down from three. "...one, pull!"

They yanked as hard as they could on their string, snapping them all and reeling them back in as soon as possible. Immediately a simultaneous high-pitched wail echoed throughout the house, joined with a chorus of banging, screaming, cursing and yelling from the victims. Along with the curses, the trio could hear shuffling and things being dragged across the floor, probably the hungover idiots trying to find the elusive air horns. After a few seconds, they gave up and some people attempted to open the door, instead resorting to more yelling and banging on the door when all they got was the lock rattling, and the doors refusing to budge. Tobi burst from his room crying his eyes out and ran straight to the trio where Katie tossed him some earplugs. He took them gratefully and sat down with a quick 'thank you Katie-chan!' while still sniffling, then Pein and Konan stormed over to take their own and demand Itachi explain what was going on since he was the only one capable of speaking.

Katie burst into a fit of evil laughter, and doubled over when she heard a particularly interesting death threat from one of the screeching criminals. Black Zetsu joined her in her laughter, and White Zetsu just snickered along a little, Itachi smirking from the doorway.

"KATIE YOU MOTHERFUCKING SADISTIC GINGER BITCH LET ME THE FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW!" Melissa screeched over the wailing horns.

Katie caught her breath and yelled back. "No way! Too - ha - funny!"

Zetsu turned to look at the girl, who had now returned to laughing her ass off. "Katie, how long are the horns going to go on for? **Hopefully forever; Hidan, Deidara and Sasori are fucking hilarious!**"

Sure enough, the three mentioned had reacted worst to the little 'wake-up call'. Hidan was yelling sentences completely made of curse words (which all surprisingly made sense), Deidara was yelling threats while rummaging for the hidden aerosol and trying to calm down Melissa at the same time, and Sasori sounded like he was crying or something.

He probably was, with the massive headache he certainly had.

Eventually the horns started dying down, and once they had completely finished, everyone without earplugs breathed a sigh of relief.

Matt's calm, low voice came through his door. "Katie? Can you come and let us out now?"

"Whew!" Katie caught her breath. "That was too funny! And no, because someone will rip my face off if I do."

"HELL YES I'LL RIP YOUR FACE OFF!" Melissa yelled, earning a few pained groans and curses from the other victims. "Oh, sorry Dei, Sasori, hehe."

"We're leaving you in there until you calm down. **Doubt that'll happen any time soon, but until you're calm enough to not murder us anyway**," Zetsu said.

"ZETSU?!" Hidan cried. "You fucking traitor! How could you?"

"You've annoyed us for years, Hidan. **Karma's a bitch, right dickless?**" the plant man replied, smirking.

Pein stepped in with a scowl. "That's enough. I want food, coffee, and an explanation while we wait, so let's take this to the kitchen, okay?"

With that, he took off down the stairs on his coffee hunt, not even waiting for the rest of us.

Tobi sped after him, flailing his arms behind him. "Wait, Leader-sama! Tobi wants to talk to you~!"

Zetsu rolled his eyes at his partner before turning to put all of the supplies back into the box.

"Ouch, looks like _someone's _not a morning person," Katie muttered to Konan. "How do you cope?"

Konan shrugged as they started down the stairs. "I've known him since we were children, I guess you just get used to it."

"I wish Mel would be like that with me. Instead, she suffocates me at 9AM." Katie rolled her eyes.

Konan giggled and Itachi materialised beside Katie along with Zetsu.

Itachi looked down at the redhead with a slightly amused glint in his eyes and asked, "While I remember, why do you have so many of those noise-making things in your house anyway?"

Katie grinned. "I was waiting for someone to point that out. Basically, my housemate Demi is a crazy bitch so she keeps all kinds of stuff like that in the shed. I have pretty strange things of my own, but they're down in the basement. I'll have to show you guys my things at some point, actually. You'd all probably be quite interested."

"**That does sound quite intriguing**," Zetsu agreed. "Are we following Pein?"

Katie nodded and walked towards the staircase. "Yep. We'd better hurry or he'll probably end up destroying the coffee machine because he doesn't know how to plug it in yet. Let's go."

Everyone snickered and followed their host down the stairs.

**-x-**

**(Melissa, Deidara and Sasori's room)**

"Damn, my ears are still ringing, un."

Deidara and Melissa were sprawled across the bed, both rubbing their heads from the lingering pain of both their hangovers and their 'alarm'. Sasori was sat at the foot of the bed, staring intently at his knees with a frown creasing his forehead.

"Same," Mel whispered. "I'm gonna kill that bitch, I swear."

Deidara chuckled. "Then what would we do for money?"

"Oh yeah. Damn," the black-haired girl replied dejectedly.

They continued to recover in silence until Sasori suddenly hissed and clutched his head, letting it fall to his knees. Deidara sat up quickly and tapped his partner on the shoulder, while Mel seemed to have not heard anything. "Hey Danna, are you okay? You wan-"

"Shut up, brat," Sasori growled. "I'm remembering something."

Deidara blinked and sat back on his heels. "Remembering something? From the party?"

"No," he panted, groaning in pain. "Now shut the hell up, because it is _killing _me to get this."

The girl on the bed rolled over onto her stomach and eyed the two criminals curiously. "What's going on, Dei?"

Deidara shrugged and glanced at her. "No idea. He said he's 'remembering something', hmm."

As soon as those words left his mouth, Sasori let out an even louder groan and gripped his hair. "Damn it!" he cursed.

"Sasori, what are you trying to remember?" Deidara demanded.

The redhead ignored him and just as suddenly as he started being in pain, relaxed completely. "I-I tried to remember last night, but I got something else instead..." he trailed off.

"What was it?" Mel asked.

Sasori stared at her with his chocolate brown eyes wide open.

"I remembered how we got here."

**-x-**

_A/N: I was in a cruel mood, so I left you on a cliffie. Ha._

_Anyway, I wanted to say thank you to all of my fans, voters, and even those readers who just lurk in the shadows. :)_

_Yes, I know you're there. But don't worry, I'm glad you're just reading anyway, but a vote would be nice once in a while. ^-^_

**Random Fact #7: **Katie's favourite Naruto characters are in this order: Itachi, Deidara, Hidan, Suigetsu, Sasuke and Lee. Melissa's are these (in no order): Deidara, Kakshi, Naruto, Gaara and Sasori, and Matt's are Shizune, Kushina, Anko and Ayame (the Ichiraku's girl).

Also, Melissa has an undying love for Tazuna and his sake addiction.


	9. Chapter Nine: The Foundation

_A/N: I hope the result of the cliffie isn't too far-fetched, but trust me, it'll lead to more things and get wrapped up properly later on in this story, so hopefully it'll be one of those 'ahhh, now I get it' moments. :L_

_Btw, Sasori will be quite OOC in this fic, thanks to the fact he's now fully human and has the emotions of one too. If you don't like it, please just stop reading now instead of flaming me for it :)_

_**I don't own Naruto, even though I wish I did. :(**_

-x-

(First Person, Katie)

You know, there's nothing better than the smell of cooking bacon in the morning. It's just one of those things you only appreciate properly before noon, no matter what.

I might not like eating it, but the smell is just too good to miss.

If you're wondering why I was cooking bacon, it was basically just adding to the torture of my morning victims. Hopefully their ninja senses would allow them to smell the greasy goodness from upstairs, but also let them know they'd never get any.

Deprivation of food the morning after is not nice.

Sadly, bacon wasn't the priority for a few minutes; Pein's coffee was.

Turns out he's more of a moody bastard than I am normally without his coffee, and it took me forever to explain how the coffee machine worked in my house because it had been so long since I'd used it myself, hating coffee and all. By the time he got the gist of it, I could practically feel the waves of frustration and impatience rolling off of the poor man.

I snickered to myself at the memory as I flipped one of the many rashers in the pan.

Zetsu came up behind me and gazed at the sizzling meat hungrily. "Are they nearly done? Smells awesome."

"Not long now, I think," I smiled, tossing another.

Suddenly, a scream ripped through the house.

"_KATIE!_"

My head snapped around so fast that I'm surprised I didn't get whiplash, and I saw the others had too. "Shit!"

I dropped the spatula on the floor with an unceremonious clatter and sprinted from the room, everyone else hot on my heels.

I snatched the keys from my pocket and scrambled to open Mel's door. "Come on, come on..."

I eventually slammed it open to reveal Sasori staring at us with a blank expression, and Melissa and Deidara alternating between talking hurriedly to each other and trying to snap the redhead out of his trance. I vaguely wondered how she'd gotten over her hangover so quickly.

"What the hell's going on in here?" I demanded.

Mel turned around before gesturing wildly to me. "It's Sasori!"

"What about Sasori?" Pein asked. "Is something wrong with him?"

"No, no!" she shook her head quickly. "Nothing's wrong!"

"Well why the fuck did you scream so loudly?! You scared the absolute shit out of me! I thought someone had died or something!" I yelled.

The black haired girl sighed. "If you'd let me finish, you might find out." I shut my mouth with a scowl. "Thank you. Anyway, Sasori here just had an empifony!"

"You mean an epiphany?" Itachi asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mel rolled her eyes. "That, whatever. So Sasori here had one of those things that Itachi said!"

We all looked at Sasori expectantly, and he still looked out of it, even though Deidara was snapping his fingers in front of his face impatiently. I huffed and trudged over to the bed and grabbed the confused blond's hand.

"Sorry Sasori," I muttered.

I bent Deidara's wrist back, making the mouth on his mouth open up a little, and slapped it on the side of his partner's face, where it promptly licked a slimy trail of hand-spit up his cheek with its tongue. Sasori blinked and suddenly the life was back in his eyes like someone had flicked a switch in his brain. He pulled a disgusted face once I dropped Deidara's hand.

"Oh God, ugh!" the puppet master wiped the saliva from his face with a sleeve and turned to glare at his terrorist partner, cuffing the back of his head in annoyance. "Brat, what the hell was that for?"

Deidara whimpered. "Ow, headache..."

Sasori blinked and his angry expression suddenly dropped from his face. "Oh, right."

The speed at which his emotions changed actually made my eyes widen in surprise. He was more bipolar than Demi without her 'happy pills'.

"Sasori," Pein interrupted. "My coffee's going cold downstairs, so if you don't mind telling us what you need to say, it would be much appreciated."

Sasori nodded quickly from fear of an attack from a caffeine-deprived Leader. "Yes. Thanks to Katie and Zetsu's prank waking me up," he turned to glare at me. I returned his annoyed stare with an innocent smile, which he rolled his eyes at before continuing. "I tried to remember what happened last night because it seemed like I got a little bit too intoxicated-"

"Understatement of the century," Deidara muttered.

"Be quiet brat," Sasori snapped. "Anyway, I guess I tried too hard, because I soon began to get a headache, and eventually it got completely unbearable, before all the memories came."

"You're telling me that Melissa scared the crap out of me just so that I could hear about your night?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sasori growled and pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. "No, now if people would stop interrupting me, you might find out what I remembered!" We all became silent. "Thank you. Just so it doesn't happen again, I'll put it bluntly for you. I know how we got here."

Everyone but Melissa and Deidara's mouths dropped open. "You what?!"

I put my palms up in a shushing gesture. "Guys, let's interrogate Pinocchio after we get everyone else downstairs. You go downstairs and wait in the front room while we go get the others." I grabbed Pein's arm. "And I'll make you, our brilliant leader, some more coffee if you act as my temporary bodyguard from Matt and Hidan."

I dragged the confused piercing addict out of the room as the others began filing downstairs at my command and took him to Matt and Kisame's room, shoving him in front of me and stuffing the key into his hand, demanding he open the door and be my meat shield.

He did as I asked, which I internally partied at, and as I expected, Matt came flying out of the door with a loud snarl, attempting to murder, or at the very least seriously maim, me. He ran straight into Pein, and because the ginger was practically a wall of muscle, he bounced off him.

"I hate you so much Katie!" he growled. "Fucking ginger..."

"Whoa, calm down Matt," I laughed. "It was just a prank! Anyway, get downstairs, we've got big news."

Kisame appeared behind the brunet then, rubbing his right ear and frowning a little, clearly trying to ward off a headache from the earlier racket. "Big news?"

"Yes, it seems that Sasori has remembered how we arrived in this world," Pein said.

The blue man and his roommate's eyes widened almost comically, and I snickered quietly to myself from behind my fellow ginger.

"Are you kidding me? Let's go then!" Kisame exclaimed.

Pein moved out of the way as the shark and the gaming nerd pushed their way past in their hurry to get to the front room, and we walked over to the door of Kakuzu and Hidan's room. We could hear the pair muttering to each other through the door, but I yelled in anyway. "Hidan! Don't try and kill me just yet, I've got a Pein and I'm not afraid to use him!"

"Ha, you scared of me, bitch?" he replied. I could practically hear the arrogant smirk in his voice.

"No, but I'm not in the mood for beating the shit out of you, and Pein hasn't had his coffee yet, so I'm sure he'd do it for me," I shot back.

"Bring it!" he yelled. "I'd fucking - oof!"

He was cut off by Kakuzu obviously punching him in the gut. Said stitched miser drawled through the door, "You can open up now, I've got him."

"Thank you, Kuzu-kun!" I sang, fishing the key from my pocket and unlocking the bedroom door with a click.

Kakuzu's scowling face made itself known as he swung open the door, one arm holding Hidan back with a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. "It's _Ka_kuzu, not 'Kuzu-kun'."

I shrugged. "Whatever. Same difference. Anyway, Sasori remembered what got you guys here, so hurry up downstairs so we can find out; the suspense is killing me!"

Kakuzu's eyes widened, and he dropped his hand from Hidan's mouth, inadvertently letting the Jashinist speak. "No fucking way! Kakuzu you bastard, let me down!"

His partner dropped him on the floor with a _thump_ at his request, before dipping his head at us and starting downstairs, leaving Hidan to jog after him, yelling at him to wait up.

I blinked then glanced at Pein. "Hm. Well that was surprisingly easy. C'mon, let's grab your coffee and listen to Sasori."

-x-

(Front Room)

I narrowed my eyes at the puppet master sat across from me and chewed on my bottom lip in thought.

"So let me get this straight..." I began slowly. "You're telling me that it was a squad of Konoha ANBU in black cloaks that did this to you?"

After I made Pein a new cup of coffee, the entire group had sat down in the front room, listening to Sasori's memories intently.

Even Tobi had sat silently without even fidgeting. I guess that the explanation had caught his attention that much that he had dropped his 'Tobi' persona for a little while, judging from the silence and the odd aura surrounding him.

What he had told us completely confused me, but something in the back of my mind was niggling at me; telling me that something was up with these ANBU.

_-Flashback (Third Person)-_

"Leader-sama?"

"Yes, Tobi?"

"Um, Tobi wants to know why you've taken us all out today. It doesn't really happen often."

Tobi fidgeted a little under the emotionless Rinnegan gaze of Pein. "Well Tobi, I'm glad someone asked. I've summoned you all here today for a spar, because some of you seem to be becoming slightly... complacent."

The Akatsuki huffed and spluttered in outrage, but silenced when Pein raised his hand. "Since you're overconfident with your abilities, I have decided that today you will all spar with at least one other person than your usual partner so that the fights are less predictable, and you will have to use your brains to win the fight, and possibly some skills you hardly use..."

As Pein continued his speech, the Akatsuki failed to notice the four pairs of blank eyes watching their every movement from the bushes and the trees.

"...And so, Sasori, you will be fighting Itachi, since he cannot use his Sharingan on a puppet, and he seems to be a little too dependent on that particular skill," the orange haired man began walking backwards towards the treeline at the edge of the clearing, Konan at his side. "Everyone but those two get out of the clearing unless you want to get burnt, poisoned or stabbed."

Once everyone was a safe distance away, Pein was about to call out 'start', when he frowned. Something didn't feel right to him. He listened carefully to the area around him, and he couldn't hear anything but the usual forest noises and the sound of metal scraping against wood as Sasori stepped inside Hiruko, which he had just summoned.

That's when it clicked.

It was _too _silent.

"Everyone, on guard!" he yelled, startling Konan and Tobi who were stood beside him. "Hidan, Deidara, are you still here?"

Nothing.

Pein cursed under his breath and leaped out into the clearing between a confused Sasori and Itachi. "We've got company."

"What?" Sasori rumbled.

A rustling sound came from one of the bushes at the edge of the clearing, and a Konoha ANBU wearing a hooded black cloak and a demonic looking mask appeared a few metres in front of the three, as another trio of the strange ninja dropped down from the trees. Konan and Tobi skidded to a stop next to Pein, Konan whipping out a kunai and holding it out in front of her with a frown. "Who are you, and what business do you have with us?"

The first ANBU cocked his head to the side thoughtfully, and spoke in a hollow-sounding voice. "Who we are is none of your concern, and as for what we want with you, I suppose we can tell you that."

A smaller ninja wearing a twisted tiger mask spoke next. Their voice was far too cheerful for what they said next. "We have been sent to dispose of the organisation known as the Akatsuki."

"Dispose of us?" Sasori scoffed. "You think that you four could take us all down? Don't be so naive, it will be your downfall."

"We are not naive," yet another ANBU said. "We have already eliminated five of your members."

Konan's eyes widened slightly. "Impossible! You're completely outnumbered!"

"Maybe so, but we certainly outclass you all in skill," ANBU number one replied calmly. "Say your last goodbyes to this world while you can still speak."

The Akatsuki stared at them in utter disbelief. A four-man squad of strangely dressed ANBU genuinely believed that they were stronger than five of the strongest and most experienced members of the most feared criminal organisation in the ninja world, and then confront them without any backup nearby? They must be insane.

Pein frowned. "Kill them."

Itachi and Konan charged the group of ANBU, all of whom were quickly running through hand signs simultaneously. Sasori stayed behind with Pein and Tobi, but his tail whipped out and sped towards the group, poison glinting in the sunlight on the tip.

The final ANBU, the red markings on his bear mask looking like they almost glowed, whispered just loud enough for Konan and Itachi to hear as he and his teammates all ended on a serpent seal. "Too late."

"REVERSE SUMMONING JUTSU!"

The last thing the five Akatsuki saw before the darkness consumed them was the quickly blurring masks of the mystery ANBU as they slammed both of their palms onto the ground...

_-End Flashback- _

Sasori nodded. "Yes, but they didn't look like ordinary ANBU to me, and to defeat all of us at once, they definitely couldn't have been, even though we were distracted with the surprise spar."

I hummed my agreement. "No, they don't sound like ordinary ANBU to me either. Hey, Itachi?"

Itachi blinked in surprise. "Yes?"

"You were in ANBU for a while, right?" I asked. He nodded hesitantly, obviously not seeing what I was getting at. "Well if you think back, did any of your comrades wear black cloaks on missions?"

He looked thoughtful. "...No, not that I can remember."

From his spot sprawled on the rug in front of where I was curled up in my beanbag, Hidan sighed impatiently. "Is this gonna fucking lead somewhere?"

Just as I was about to snap back a sarky reply, Mel cleared her throat quietly from her seat between Matt and Deidara. "I think I have an idea who they are."

We all stared at her.

"Really?" I asked, shocked.

She nodded. "Yep!"

"So who are they then, hmm?" Deidara asked.

"I think they're ROOT," she replied with a small pleased smirk.

I almost face-palmed at the obviousness of it.

Of course! If they were ROOT, it would all make sense. The black cloaks, weird masks, creepy voices, mad skills; it all added up.

The only thing I couldn't place was why they would suddenly want to 'dispose of' the Akatsuki, especially since the Kages would find it suspicious that ten S-ranked criminals suddenly disappeared into thin air.

"ROOT?" Konan asked confusedly.

"ROOT was an elite and secret branch of the Konoha ANBU ran by Danzo Shimura," Itachi practically spat the elder's name. "But I believe it was disbanded years ago."

I shook my head. "Officially, yes. But Danzo has been training more of the zombie ANBU without anyone knowing, except the people in our world, and depending where you are on the Naruto timeline, some of the Konoha ninja."

Matt spoke up from the chair in the corner of the room. "Speaking of which, why don't we find out? Itachi, Deidara, how old are you two?"

"17, 18 in three months, un," Deidara said.

"19," Itachi replied.

I could see the wheels turning in Matt's head as he did the maths. "So we're about... beginning to mid-timeskip. That means nobody knows about ROOT yet, and they find out in about a year or so."

"Right," I nodded. "So what would they gain from sending the Akatsuki to another universe at this point in time, especially since they haven't really begun anything yet?"

Matt ran a hand through his hair. "No fucking clue."

"It doesn't matter what they did this for at the moment," Pein began. "What does matter is that it happened, and hopefully now we can make some progress in planning a way to get back to our world since we know this much."

His casual statement hit me like a ton of bricks.

Even though the group of criminals had only been in my house for the past couple of days, it seemed like they'd been there forever, and I have to admit, I'd already gotten attached. It's a bad habit of mine to get too attached to things that are only temporary, and I'd actually completely forgotten that the Akatsuki had to return as soon as possible.

Being a fangirl sucks major ass.

Tobi broke me out of my thoughts with a small chuckle. "Ah, but Leader-sama, how are we going to perform a jutsu without chakra?"

Fuck yeah!

I internally partied, and I guess the hope and excitement I was trying to hide slipped through my poker face a little, because Itachi, who was sat on the end seat of the sofa next to my beanbag, glanced in my direction and smirked.

I just stuck my tongue out at him.

Kakuzu sighed. "For once, Tobi has a point."

"Well that's a first," Hidan snickered as he sat up and crossed his legs.

Pein ignored the Jashinist's comment and continued. "I guess I didn't think that far. At least now we know what jutsu was used on us, so we can work at figuring out a way to reverse it and then we can worry about how to actually do it."

The ginger man sighed and stood up, before motioning to Konan to do the same. "I hope you don't mind, but I think we'll be going back to our room now. I don't think either of us are too hungry, and we have quite a lot to think about," he bowed his head slightly before starting out of the room. "Please excuse us."

The pair made their way out into the hallway, and as they got to the bottom of the stairs, Tobi scrambled up from his seat and yelled after them, before speeding up the steps himself.

"Katie?" Zetsu began lowly.

I turned to look at him/them. "Yes?"

"Speaking of food, haven't you forgotten something?" he smirked.

I stared at him confusedly for a minute before it suddenly dawned on me, and I shot out of my seat with a gasp before sprinting into the kitchen, which I then noticed was slowly filling up with smoke.

"Oh my God, the bacon!"

-x-

(First Person, Mel!)

After the bacon predicament was resolved, Katie shoved Matt out of the door with a twenty pound note and her car keys, ordering him to buy some more pig meat and some Monster while he was at it.

This left me and the Akatsuki sat in the front room while Katie cursed loudly from the kitchen as she cleared up the mess. Eventually people started to head back to their rooms to either sleep off the rest of their hangovers or just sit around and try to recover their own memories of the ROOT guys.

By the time Katie stopped muttering and just got on with it, Sasori had fallen asleep on the sofa, and everyone else but Deidara and I had gone upstairs.

I sighed to myself.

As soon as Sasori told me that he'd remembered what happened, I freaked out and had no idea what to do, so I just yelled for Katie since she usually deals with serious shit like that.

Another thing I had no idea would happen was that Pein would actually start planning ways to get back to their world as soon as Sasori told them. If I had known that, I would've forced the stupid puppet to keep silent about it instead of telling everyone.

You see, I was basically living the average Naruto fangirl's (or fan-_boy_'s) dream, and since I'm one of said fangirls, I'd keep holding onto that dream until my fingers were ripped off from clinging too hard.

Ew. I sound like Naruto, going on about dreams and shit.

Seriously, though, even the thought of the Akatsuki going home so soon after they'd appeared in their cardboard box on Katie's lawn seriously got to me.

It wasn't like I was some weirdo who got obsessed with a load of guys a few days after first meeting them, because I had basically known them for about five years, even if they didn't even know I existed.

Damn, first I sounded like Naruto, and now I sound like some freaking stalker.

Well, I guess I am a _bit _of a stalker of them online, but that isn't the point here.

My point is, that if the criminals actually did find a way to reverse the summoning jutsu as soon as they obviously wanted to, I can honestly say that it would take me a _long _time to get over losing them so quickly. It sounds sucky, yes, but I bet even Katie (aka Queen of No-Outward-Affection-Shown-Whatsoever, just next to King Sasuke of Total-Cold-Bastard-To-Everyone) would agree with me on this one.

As I sighed again, Deidara chuckled at my obviously depressed expression and nudged me in the side with an elbow, earning him a pout. "What's gotten you down, hmm? You're normally so... hyper."

Last night, even though we were clearly quite drunk, Deidara and I (and Sasori before he got totally pissed off his face) talked for a while, and we'd definitely gotten to know each other better. After a shit-ton of long conversations, most of which were about art and bitching about Tobi, we found out that we actually got along really well and had quite a bit in common.

Oh, and the fact that he's fucking _sexy_ also helped me like him more.

"It's nothing really," I replied, flashing him a weak smile.

He rolled his eyes. "Now we both know that's a load of crap, yeah. Come on, you can tell me, you know."

I giggled and held my hands up. "Fine, you caught me," I took a deep breath. "I'm just a bit upset that you guys are going to leave us so soon, I guess. There was so many things I wanted to do!"

"Ah, don't worry about that, un," Deidara chuckled. I stared at him with a lifted eyebrow. "I can't believe I'm actually going to say this while I'm sane, but like Tobi said, we can't go anywhere without chakra, and it doesn't look like we're going to suddenly find any anytime soon, hmm."

I slapped myself on the forehead. "You're right! Yes!"

I grinned and wrapped my arms around the shocked bomber. Basically squeezing the life out of him, I pressed my face further into his shoulder and started giggling.

Sadly, Sasori decided to ruin the moment by snoring loudly and rolling over, so I started to sit up and laughed at him. If only I had my video camera nearby...

No matter how much I may love the puppet-turned-man, I couldn't resist the temptation to cause humiliation.

Ooh, that rhymed!

As I was thinking about possibly being an epic poet in a past life – or possibly just a member of Team Rocket – I didn't notice that Deidara was still looking at me with a small smile on his face until I turned back around to talk again. I frowned confusedly and asked hesitantly. "What's... up?"

He shook his head and laughed quietly, still looking at me. "Oh, it's nothing really."

"To quote a certain blonde bomber, now we both know that's a load of crap, yeah," I teased.

He rolled his eyes. "You really want to know, don't you?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't, duh," I said.

"Fine then. You asked for it," he muttered with a smirk.

I was waiting for him to continue, but instead of talking, he quickly ducked his head and pressed his lips gently to mine. My eyes widened and I'm sure I let out some stupidly embarrassing squeak of surprise, but wouldn't you?! One of the subjects of my fangirling was _kissing me! _

As soon as that thought registered in my fuzzy brain, I let my eyes droop closed and began to return his efforts, wrapping my arms around his neck as he put his loosely around my waist.

Man, why didn't I kiss him like this the other day instead of just hugging him? Thiswas amazing.

Eh, hindsight's a bitch.

Just as I was about to open my mouth a little to let him deepen the kiss, a loud _crash _from the doorway to the hall startled us out of it, and I turned in his embrace to meet the burning death glare of Matt in the doorway.

If looks could kill, we would both be on the floor, foaming at the mouth at that point.

His teeth were gritted, forehead creased into a massive frown, and his hands were shaking with anger. I guess that's why he dropped the shopping bags he was obviously previously holding.

"Matt, listen, please-" I started, but he growled and bolted upstairs, and the loud bang we heard shortly afterwards showed he'd slammed the door to his room.

I winced. Poor Kisame.

Turning back to Dei with a tiny apologetic smile, I wriggled free of his hold and followed Matt upstairs, and started knocking furiously on his door. "Matt, get out here now! What the hell was all that about?!"

When I was met with angry silence, I sighed and settled down beside the door. "Fine then, if you won't talk yet, then I'll just wait here until you need the bathroom or something. Good luck avoiding me forever."

-x-

(First Person, Katie)

From my vantage point in the kitchen doorway, I cleared my throat and had to suppress a snicker at Deidara's surprised jerk. "Man, you work fast. I respect you, good sir."

The blonde glared at me. "How long have you been there, un?"

I tapped my chin in thought and looked at the ceiling. "Since just before Sasori woke up."

This time, I didn't even bother to hold in my laughter at Deidara's face of shock and mortification at seeing Sasori, clearly awake, smirking on his sofa, his head resting on his clasped hands behind him. "Afternoon, brat."

Deidara spluttered. "You're awake?! When, yeah?"

"Long enough to see you act all mushy with your new girlfriend, then get caught by that boy," he chuckled.

His partner hid his face in his hands. "What did I ever do to deserve this?" he groaned to himself.

"Ah, don't worry about it, we won't tell anyone if you don't want us to, right Sasori?" I said, looking at the puppet master for confirmation. He nodded, so I continued, my smile dropping immediately to be replaced with a glare. "Well, I won't tell anyone unless you hurt her, because if you did, I'd tell everyone exactly what you did, then cut your balls off and sell them on eBay for all the fangirls out there. Got it?"

"Y-Yeah..." he gulped, a bead of sweat forming on his brow.

"Good!" my smile returned full force. "Now that's over, where did Matt drop the new bacon?"

Deidara pointed to the opposite doorway. I thanked him before going over to grab it, noticing the cans of Monster, and a few bottles of Mountain Dew obviously for Mel and I.

I frowned.

Obviously, I'd seen the whole escapade between the lovebirds and Matt, but his reaction really confused me. Since he's one of our best friends, I knew he'd react pretty harshly - I was actually looking forward to seeing him flip out - because he's really overprotective, like me. What I didn't predict was that he'd react that badly. Sure, he would seem a little angry or maybe even surprise us all by being happy for them, but he didn't.

When I saw his face, he'd looked _hurt._ It's not often that anyone can honestly say they've seen Matt show an emotion other than anger or amusement, never mind an emotion like that.

But hey, he's known to get over things quickly. I guess he'd let whatever it was drop soon enough.

I had a pretty good idea what it was that bothered him was, but I'm going to keep that to myself until I'm sure.

I sighed to myself a little before shaking my head and carrying the food out to the kitchen to re-make breakfast and hide the caffeine from Mel, leaving Sasori to tease Deidara about his little 'moment' with my black-haired best friend.

Sometimes it's just better to leave things as they are, and keep out of other people's business when it doesn't concern you.

...

Did you actually believe me then? Ha! They're practically living in my house, and in my opinion, that makes it automatically my business too.

A thought occurred to me at that moment that made an evil grin spread across my face. A thought of an event that would make everything in this house just that bit more hilarious and perverted.

Demi was home in two days.

Those two days couldn't go fast enough for me.

-x-

_A/N: Hate flashbacks, so sorry for the giant one near the middle in here. I think it just explains things a little better, so don't moan._

_Next chapter should be one of the funniest if it turns out right, so if hilarity isn't fanservice, I don't know what is. :)_

_NEXT CHAPTER!_

_Yet ANOTHER of my OCs is introduced! I know there's too many already, but I think you'll love her. ^.^_

_Awkward situations! What's up with Matt? What's going to happen with Dei and Mel?_

Random Fact #8: Katie's hair isn't actually ginger, it's more of a mid-browny colour with a tint of red. She prefers to call it ginger because it's easier to say, and she gets an excuse to call other gingers ginger. Also, she likes saying 'is it just because I'm ginger?' as a comeback to confuse people she's arguing with.


	10. Chapter Ten: Dynamic Entry

_A/N: And so this little bastard just hit double figures. I feel like a proud mother._

_Sorry about the small amount of canon character appearance in this, it's just that I couldn't really think of a good way to have them in here during the introduction of Demi. They'll be back soon, promise! :)_

_Disclaimer: Tried to bribe Kishi to let me have ownership of Sasuke and Itachi. Apparently he doesn't take pounds… _

**-x-**

**(First Person, Katie!)**

Mid-way through eating my sandwich on a Tuesday afternoon, there was lots of things I didn't expect to happen.

One of those things that I didn't expect was having my front door booted open and an overexcited pair of boobs on legs come barging into my calm front room like her butt was on fire or something equally exciting.

Well, it happened, and it was pretty normal. What did surprise me was that in fact, her butt wasn't on fire.

Shame.

"Hello bitches and Matt! Your idol has arrived! Now where the fuck are you all so I can rape you?"

The ham sandwich I was happily chewing on was cruelly knocked out of my hands as Mel leapt up from her seat beside me and screamed at the intruder. "Holy Jashin it has been too long, my wonderful lesbian lover! Get your ass in here and hug me, woman!"

As I mournfully watched my sandwich fall to the floor in slow-motion, I suddenly snapped out of it at the sound of 'lesbian lover'.

When those words came from Melissa's mouth, I immediately knew who was standing on the other side of the room without even looking up.

Demi was home.

I gave up on internally whining about wasting a good sandwich and looked up to see if it really was her, and sure enough, it was Demi in all of her emo glory.

Wait. Did she have-

Yep. The girl had blue hair.

Demi and Mel squealed and ran at each other from opposite ends of the room, grinning crazily all the while. At the mid-way point, they collided, and Demi, being the taller and therefore heavier one of the pair, knocked Mel over onto her back in a horizontal glomp.

"Hello to you too," I muttered with a smirk. When I saw her grin directed at me, I hurriedly added, "Nonononono, don't fucking rape me too! No bitch, get the fuck away - ah, screw it, get over here!"

Suddenly, I found myself joining my long lost sandwich on the floor, except unlike the wonderful item of food, I had a best friend crushing my lungs by latching onto me koala-style.

Whoa, déja vú... (1)

I laughed but tried to shake her off, which only made her slip down my body and cling to my leg with a snicker. (2) "Demi, let go now."

"Don' wanna," she replied, shaking her blue head.

In case you were wondering, no, Demi didn't have fucking bright blue hair before she left to go to Wales, hence the fact that I was completely shocked when I first saw her. She'd been telling me that she planned to get it done for the past few weeks, but I never actually believed her, especially since her mum is stupidly strict for a mother of a 17-year-old girl like her.

I guess I should've seen it coming really, I mean, she got her lip pierced when she was 13 simply to annoy 'The Bitch Mother', so it wasn't really an unexpected thing for her to do.

I huffed and swung my other leg, hitting Demi in a ticklish spot on her side. She jerked and squeaked before releasing my calf in favour for spazzing about on the carpet before rolling over to glare up at me. "Well that was a nice thing to do to someone you haven't seen in ten days."

I smiled sweetly as I flopped back into my beanbag. "So is raping me as soon as you set foot through the door."

"Ah, touché."

"You really need to get over your Naruto Abridged quote obsession, you know that?"

"Yes I do, and we both know that will never happen, so stop wasting oxygen."

At that point, Melissa decided to come over and straddle Demi's back to get our attention. "You guys forgot about me, didn't you?" she pouted, giving me the full force of the puppy dog face.

Yet again, I melted. Stupid fucking cute faces...

"No we didn't, we were just too busy showing our love to each other with sarcasm, is that such a crime?" Demi looked around to the girl on her back and clutched her heart like she was hurt.

"No, sarcasm is awesome, so it's allowed," Mel giggled, poking Demi in the forehead.

Mel stopped her giggling abruptly. "Huh, I didn't notice you dyed your hair."

Immediately, I introduced my palm to my forehead.

You know the way I always joke about her being retarded? Well yeah, I think it might actually be true.

She probably got dropped down the stairs as a baby or some other shit.

"Well somebody's especially observant today," I deadpanned. "How the fuck can you not notice somebody's previously brown hair is suddenly electric blue?!"

Mel shrugged and rolled off of Demi to lie on her back on the rug, doing a full-body stretch as she spoke. "I dunno. Guess I was just too happy to see her to notice."

Demi grinned and poked Mel's stomach, laughing when she twitched and scowled. "Aw, did someone miss me?"

"Definitely not me," a voice grunted from the doorway.

We all turned to see Matt leaning against the doorframe, smirking down at the two other weirdos I call my best friends lying on the floor.

Demi smirked. "Ah, so the cave troll is here too. And how did you recognise me anyway? You could only see the back of my head from that angle."

He flicked his fringe from his face. "I could hear your annoying voice from the kitchen, and I don't know anyone other than you who's stupid enough to dye their hair such a disgusting colour."

"What? How dare you say such a thing about the wonder of Forget-Me-Not Blue?" Demi mock gasped.

"Wonder? The only thing I'm wondering right now is why anyone would even think about using that dye on themselves for anything other than a dare," Matt snorted.

"Charity event?" I supplied.

Eyes were rolled.

Instead of a reply, Demi jumped back up to her feet before dusting herself off and running around to grab onto Matt's back, piggyback-style. "What can I say, you only live once. Plus, I know you missed me, so stop denying it, you miserable fuck."

"Whatever, keep on dreaming," Matt mumbled, rolling his eyes as he tried to pry the rapist child off of his back while Mel and I laughed at his misery.

Since it was Tuesday, Matt had had two whole days to get out of his emo corner and stop whining about the kiss, but he'd only actually used half an hour. Weirdly enough, when Mel confronted him about his freak out, he'd acted like nothing had happened.

Like I said, the man is strange.

If you were wondering why the Akatsuki weren't around, it was because they were training in the backyard like they'd been doing all day and the day before. Even though they had no chakra, and it was in the middle of one of the coldest Februarys in decades, they insisted they keep up with their taijutsu so they didn't get 'rusty'.

That may make them sound quite obsessed with their training, but as I can say from my own experience, you do end up getting a bit shit if you don't practise in a long while.

Back in the real world, Mel and I were still watching Matt and Demi bicker in the corner of the room, giggling every now and again at some of the questions she was asking him.

"So Matt, has your tiny penis grown at all? Last I heard it still resembled a mutated raisin."

"Fuck you! You've never seen it anyway, and you never will!"

Demi chuckled evilly. "Oh, haven't I?"

Matt froze. "You didn't."

"Luckily for you, I'm not into geeky cave trolls with manboobs, so no, I haven't been down there," she grinned and wiggled her eyebrows. "But hey, if you want me to, I'm sure that can be arrang - ow."

The blue haired pervert rubbed her black minskirt clad ass from where she had been roughly thrown off of Matt's back and frowned up at him, wagging a finger. "Now, now, violence is not the answer, Matty-poo."

Matt growled before flipping her off and storming out of the room in a huff. "And for your information, I do not have manboobs, and I'm not a cave troll! You're just pissy because I'm smarter than you!"

"Asshole!" Demi yelled. When she was sure he was out of earshot, she spoke again. "Well that worked well."

I raised an eyebrow as she crawled over and plopped herself down on the sofa Mel wasn't sprawled on. She obviously took it as a sign to continue as she explained. "I wanted to get him out of here so you guys can catch me up on everything, and I couldn't have him here to ruin our girly conversation! I bet I've missed so much!"

Oh, she has no idea.

I laughed nervously and scratched at an irritating dry patch of skin on my cheek. "Well, I'm not really sure how to tell you this-"

"We found a box of kittens in the driveway who actually turned out to be the Akatsuki under some ROOT jutsu, and now they're living here with us," Mel blurted out. When I glared at her, she flashed a sheepish smile. "Sorry?"

"Retard!" I hissed. Before I could go on a mini rant about idiot emos who can't keep their mouths shut, Demi appeared in front of me, smiling far too innocently for my liking. I stared at her suspiciously.

"Where are they?" she asked calmly. I made a hesitant noise. "You'll have to show me them soon enough, I do live here too, in case you'd forgotten. So I repeat. Where. Are. They."

I hadn't forgotten, I'd just conveniently ignored that fact for the previous 30 seconds.

I sighed, resigned. "They're out back training."

As she grinned and began to pull away, I grabbed her arm. "But you're not going out of my sight."

Demi rolled her blue eyes. "Yes, mother. What's the worst I would do, jump them?" I gave her a look. "Hey, don't give me that shit! Even I'm not crazy enough to attack a fucking Akatsuki member."

"Hey! Are you calling me crazy?" Mel protested.

"Yes," I replied.

"You suck," she pouted. Demi opened her smirking mouth to make a comment, but Mel cut her off. "Not the time for innuendos, you."

"Spoilsport," the bluenette said, before she took on a look of realisation. "Wait a minute, does that mean you've got to hug one of the Akatsuki?"

"Not just one, two," I said.

Demi's eyes widened. "No way, jealous!"

Mel poked out her tongue. "Good for you. Now come on and meet them anyway, we warned them you'd be here at some point, so they'll probably be wondering what's up if we don't get out there soon."

Demi jumped up from her seat and grinned. "You don't have to tell me twice."

**-x-**

**(Backyard, Third Person!)**

Itachi swung his leg around, attempting to sweep out Kisame's legs from underneath him. Unfortunately, the shark man had predicted his move, so dodged just in time and grabbed his partner's ankle, pulling it towards him in an attempt to drag him onto his back. The Uchiha wouldn't fall for that trick, so planted a hand firmly on the ground and twisted himself on it, bringing his free leg around to hit Kisame in the face with a thump.

The blue man released Itachi's opposite ankle as he grabbed his cheek with a wince, where he would no doubt have a bruise the next day. "Damn, Itachi! We were supposed to be going easy on each other!"

Itachi smirked and folded his arms over his chest as he landed back on his feet, panting slightly. "That _was_ going easy on you."

"Tch," Kisame snorted, frowning.

Just as they were about to head over to where Pein was sat with the water, a loud squeal was heard from the door to the house. "Holy shit! Sexy overload! Let me go, Katie, I have to take the Uchiha now!"

"Hell no, you fucking psycho! No raping in my back yard!"

"B-But it's my backyard too! And it's Itachi! Uchiha Itachi!"

"Yes, I know. I've shared a bedroom with him since Saturday."

Demi wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Ooh, smooth."

A slap and a whine were heard.

"Not like that, dammit! Why am I friends with a perv like you anyway?"

"Because you'd miss my all-around awesome aura if I wasn't here?"

"No!"

While Katie and a blue haired girl were distracted by their arguing, the Akatsuki had stopped fighting with each other in favour of staring in either confusion or because they were completely disturbed by some of the things the latter was saying.

The blue hair wasn't the only thing that stood out in the way the unknown girl looked, so the gang of criminals were looking over her outfit as they waited for the pair to finish their conversation.

Her blue hair was long, layered and straight, reaching to about her shoulder blades, and backcombed a lot at the top to make it have more volume at the roots. The bangs were cut in a deep side part and covered almost all of her forehead, except it was swept from one side and left to join the layers at the side of her face.

Her clothes were... _unique_, for a lack of a better word, with a black t-shirt adorned with neon and white writing; 'Bring Me The Horizon' being the largest part, spread across her more-than-ample chest. Under her black miniskirt, a pair of plain black tights covered her legs, and she wore a pair of black Converse hi-tops with mismatched star-print laces on her feet. The final piece of clothing she wore other than her backpack was a plain black hoodie rolled to her elbows to expose the many multicoloured bracelets and bands on her wrists. When their gazes made their way up to her face to take in the pale makeup and heavy black eyeliner, they noticed a giant grin spread across said face, aiming their way.

"Katie! Katie, look! The Akatsuki are staring at me! Oh my God this is the best day of my fucking _life!_"

"Well what do you expect, Demi? Some girl with blue hair walks in and demands to be allowed to rape one of their members," Mel quipped, walking through the doorway and stopping to stand next to the pair.

"Well it's hardly my fault he's so damn rapeable!" Demi exclaimed. She folded her arms over her chest. "Fine, I promise not to attack any of them if you let me go, deal?"

Katie rolled her eyes and released her housemate with a small smile. "Good."

"So this is the Demi chick you were talking to when we first got here?" Hidan spoke from the other end of the garden.

"Yup, the one and only!" she grinned, waving at him. Her smile grew even more when he hesitantly waved back.

"She's not really what I expected from the things I've heard," Sasori commented.

"Me neither, she left with brown hair, and came back with blue," Katie muttered. "Not really something you'd think would happen when someone goes to Wales for a week with their mum."

"In my defence, I only got it done because I was drunk," Demi said, then snickered. "Oh, and because I wanted to see the potato's face when she saw it. Fucking hilarious, I'm telling you."

"Potato? Please don't tell me vegetables have faces in this world," Kisame groaned.

Mel snorted. "Nah, that's just what she calls her mum, because she's convinced she looks like an overgrown spud. As you can tell, she doesn't like her mum much."

"No shit," Katie said. "And she has good reason to hate her, because I hate the bitch too."

"But you hate everyone," Mel pointed out.

"No, I don't hate everyone, just the majority of people our age and below," the ginger corrected. "Matt's the one who hates everybody."

Mel 'ahh'ed and nodded.

What the pair didn't take notice of was that while they were talking, Demi had been inching away from her watchers and closer to Deidara, who was the closest Akatsuki member to her. He was also oblivious, having switched off when the girls got sidetracked, so had grabbed a bottle of water and sat down to rest.

Demi crept ever closer, and just as Katie's recently nicknamed 'Retard Radar' alerted her to the rapist-like behaviour of her friend, she pounced.

Poor Deidara never stood a chance.

He was knocked to the floor immediately, spewing the mouthful of water he was previously about to drink all over the grass as his body collided with the ground, elated teenager latched onto his back. The rest of the Akatsuki burst out laughing at his annoyance, and the only person left unaffected by it seemed to be the glomper herself.

"What the hell is it with me and getting raped by random teenage girls, hmm?!" he screeched. "Do I have a fucking sticker on my back or something?"

Demi leaned down and whispered into his ear. "Nope, I just think it's that aura of sexy you just ooze. Us girls just can't resist, raging hormones and all."

Deidara's eyes widened and he tried to flip her off of him, but to no avail. The girl had attended the same classes Katie had since she was thirteen, so her grip and strength was quite impressive.

"You may try, but you shall never escape from my splendid kung-fu grip!" she exclaimed, sounding far too Gai-like for Katie's liking. "You are now my bitch, and my sex slave, among many other degrading things that may or may not give me pleasure."

"No way! He's mine!" Mel frowned, yanking Demi's electric blue locks back until she released her hold on the blonde.

"And since when was he yours?" Demi replied, raising an eyebrow and planting her hands on her hips once she was back on her feet.

At that point, Katie decided to act on a potentially cruel and humiliating idea that had wormed its way into her mind. "Since they played tonsil hockey on Sunday."

As soon as she finished her statement, she didn't regret it.

The entire party of people fell silent, directing their shocked gazes to the now furiously blushing and awkwardly shifting pair.

"No way!" Hidan yelled. "Fluffy tried it on with her? She's way out of his fucking league, the lucky prick!"

"From what I saw, it wasn't just him, it was completely returned too," Sasori chipped in, smirking as the blushes slowly increased to almost 'explosion-of-bodily-fluid-imminent' levels.

It seemed like the puppet had a secret love for gossiping. Katie made a mental note of that fact for the future.

"Well I can see where I'm not welcome. I hope you two are happy!" Demi sniffed. She quickly recovered, however, by turning her attention to Hidan in the form of a sultry glance. "Hey babe, since pretty-boy's clearly spoken for, how about we hook up later? There's a bedroom with our names on i- ow, dammit! Katie that hurt!"

Katie gritted her teeth. "I hope so. Now shut up and stop offering sex to the criminals. You haven't even spoken to half of them yet and you're already being creepy."

Demi shrugged. "What can I say, being creepy is in my nature."

"You can say that again, un," Deidara muttered, rubbing his chest where he'd belly-flopped the ground.

Nobody had seemed to pay attention to the calculating stare that 'Tobi' was giving Demi from a secluded area of the garden, where he had previously been attempting to plan ways to create a reverse jutsu while still under the guise of his happy-go-lucky alter ego.

_I have a bad feeling about this girl..._ he thought, frowning slightly to himself_. I don't know what it is, but there's something about the way she acts that makes me feel a little uneasy. I'll be keeping a close eye on you, Demi. I can't have a weak little brat like you interfering with our plans..._

"So!" Demi shouted, clapping her hands together and looking around at the group. "Since there's suddenly an awkward silence hanging in the air, who wants popcorn? I won a load in a raffle on holiday."

At that, everyone's ears suddenly perked up.

"Sweet or salted?" Katie asked.

"Either," she replied. "And yes, Katie, I got some toffee popcorn too."

Katie whooped and fist bumped Demi. "And this is why I share my house with you and nobody else. That and the fact that I doubt I'd be able to live with the boredom of being on my own."

The red haired teen paused. She raised a finger to her chin and started tapping it as she was obviously thinking over something. Eventually, she seemed to come to a conclusion.

With a small smile, Katie asked, "Mel?"

Melissa turned around from her conversation with Deidara. "Hm?"

"Wanna move in with me?"

Melissa's eyes widened to almost scary proportions. "Seriously?"

"Deadly," Katie confirmed.

Mel squealed and sprinted to hug Katie, clearly attempting to smother her with platonic love. "Yes yes yes yes _yes!"_

"This is my place too, so as long as I don't hear that string of words coming from yours and Dei's room any time soon, you have my blessing too," Demi grinned, wrapping her arms around the pair to create some sort of stupid group hug.

"Don't worry, I'm sharing with them anyway, so I'll make sure the brat stays out of her pants," Sasori chuckled.

"Jeez, Danna!" Deidara shouted, sounding completely mortified. "I'm not trying to get into her pants! You're such an old perv, yeah!"

"Perv?" Demi repeated. "Sasori, my brother!"

With that, she leaped onto the poor unsuspecting man, knocking him to the ground with such a stupid expression that even Itachi had to smother a laugh.

**-x-**

**(Third Person, Later That Night)**

"Mel, please tell me you noticed what I did earlier."

Melissa jolted out of her daydreams with a small noise of confusion.

She and Demi were the only two still awake, since it was three in the morning, and they were currently lying on the sofa in their pajamas; Melissa's head in her friend's lap as she finger-combed through her ebony locks. The rest of the group had long since gone to bed, after much teasing from Demi about the sleeping arrangements of Hidan, Kakuzu, Itachi and Katie.

"Saw what?" Mel replied with a small yawn.

Demi glanced down at her and smirked. "Katie."

"Of course I saw her, she was right in front of me, stupid," Melissa giggled.

"Not that, the way she was acting!" Demi continued, sounding exasperated. "She was actually being cheerful!"

Melissa frowned. "Isn't she always like that?"

"Christ, I didn't realise how oblivious you actually are," Demi chuckled, glancing down at the annoyed pouting face glaring up at her from her lap. "She's been a little under the weather for almost a year now, and I haven't seen her look so relaxed and just generally happy in what feels like forever."

Mel smiled. "Well, now that you mention it, she has seemed a little different lately."

Demi cocked an eyebrow and flicked her fringe out of her face with the hand that wasn't in her friend's hair. "A little? Fucking hell, she's almost like a new person in a couple of goddamn weeks! She's still as lazy and sarcastic as ever, but she's started cracking jokes again and has actually moved herself out of her beanbag for once."

"I guess you're right," the dark haired girl laughed. When Demi questioned her giggle, she explained with the grin still on her face. "It's just ironic that living with a criminal gang is what ended up helping her. You'd think it would make someone worse."

The blue-haired emo matched her smile with her own. "You have a point. But these aren't just any criminals, they're our favourite fictional criminals. Plus, it isn't like Katie's not used to being around bad guys."

"That's true."

A few minutes passed in relaxed silence, before Demi's voice cut through the air.

"Anyway, what's going on with you and Girlie anyway? Did his throat taste nice?"

"Oh my god, will you just shut up about that?! You two are so embarrassing!"

"Pfft, your fault for kissing back."

"...I hate you."

"Love you too, Mel."

**-x-**

(1) In case you'd forgotten, Katie was woken up on her birthday in the same style by Mel.

_A/N: Is that a dabble of foreshadowing I detect in here somewhere...?_

_Please tell me what you thought of this (or even just what you thought of Demi) in a comment! ^.^_

**Random Fact #9:** A lot of the things my OCs say/do in this is based on things we do/say in real life. Yep, we're all just that crazy.

_Hope you liked it! ^.^_


	11. Chapter Eleven: Peppers and Problems

_A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, you amazing people! :D_

_I apologise for the lateness, but it's because I've been busy with homeworks and other general annoying shiz; you catch my drift._

_Also, I haven't checked this website in days because my computer has been being a complete dinosaur and crashing on me constantly. ._._

_Not sure if you'd call this chapter filler, but who cares, it's acceptable. :P_

_**You'll probably want to read this bit, guys.**_

_**I have a question for you. This story isn't just one, it's definitely going to have a sequel (it's planned out better than this is... *sweatdrop*), and I can't decide whether to make a trilogy or not. If you want a third story (hopefully not a shitty dragged on too long one), tell me in a comment! Same for those who want just this story, or just want the sequel.**_** :P**

_Um, yeah, enjoy :)_

_**Disclaimer: This time, I just stole the rights to own Sasuke and Itachi. However, apparently Kishi got the inspiration to make Naruto from his own natural ninja skillz, so he caught me and took them back. Gutted. **_

_**Oh, and I don't own Harry Potter or his Puppet Pals either.**_

**-x-**

**(First Person, Katie)**

_'Oh Ginny, you're so hot. You're like a stove..."_

At the opening line, Mel broke out into a massive fit of giggles, while I, being the 'mature' one, kept my compsure and just about smothered a snicker instead.

_''...You're like a zesty pepper. I feel this... connection-'_

"What the hell is that, un?"

I quickly paused the video and we spun around to face Deidara and Sasori standing behind the sofa, both with amused glints in their eyes.

"Potter Puppet Pals," Mel chirped. She patted a seat on the sofa next to her. "Sit. Watch."

Sasori raised an eyebrow, but sat alongside Deidara on the black leather sofa nonetheless.

_"...So come on, Ginny. Be ma witchhh..."_

For the rest of the video, Mel continued her giggling, I continued keeping up my 'totally not affected' act, Sasori looked increasingly interested, and Deidara just carried on staring at Melissa in a way that suggested he had no idea I had noticed and was actually snickering at the soppy look in his eyes instead of the clip.

I didn't actually know whether to find it adorable or throw up from sweetness overload.

What a sap.

It had been about two weeks since Demi had turned up in the makeshift criminal base, and currently Mel, Deidara, Sasori, and I were lounging in one of the front rooms with my laptop out, completely bored off our asses. Demi had gone to her mum's house to beg for some more money and check her terrapin hadn't died in her absence, while Matt was in the corner shop, sent on a mission by yours truly to buy more energy drinks and Nutella.

Turns out that the Akatsuki are major Nutella fans. But to be fair, who isn't? Nutella is almost as sexy as Itachi.

Before you think that Matt's a complete pushover, he actually only agreed to go when I threatened to smash his PS Vita with a hammer while I was on one of my weekly 'rampages'; aptly named by Hidan, my first and only Akatsuki victim.

The majority of the rest of the group were upstairs in their rooms being lazy and boring bastards, while Pein and Konan were in the kitchen talking about Jashin knows what.

So thanks to the above factors, I was bored enough to allow the retard to surf the web for a while, and eventually, she'd gotten onto Youtube, and had showed me some of her favourite Harry Potter Puppet Pals episodes. The one we had started when the artists appeared was the 'Ginny' episode; my personal favourite.

Just as the clip ended, Sasori leaned forward and pointed at the screen. "Just what is this thing anyway?"

Mel cocked an eyebrow. "Um, a hand puppet?"

Sasori gave her an exasperated look. "Melissa, I'm not known as a puppet master for nothing, so I think I can recognise one when I see one," She frowned and stuck her tongue out at him, muttering a 'friggin' douche' under her breath. "What I meant was what is this... contraption, for lack of a better word, as a whole?"

In the name of the heavens and all things holy.

They didn't know what computers were.

Now, being a massive computer geek and internet herm myself, I honestly couldn't comprehend how they had survived so long without the wonders of the internet. For example, if Wikipedia and Google Translate didn't exist, I bet not one of my homeworks would have been written or handed in.

I stared wide-eyed at the redhead. "You genuinely have no clue, do you?"

He gave me a look like the sarcastic bastard he is. "Actually, yes I do, I was just testing you. No, I don't know what it is, but I wouldn't mind knowing, since it seems pretty interesting."

Mel stood up. "This is what we people of Earth like to call a computer, and this one is known as a laptop!"

While she was vaguely explaining what a computer was, Mel was gesturing at the laptop like one of those girls on TV adverts do when they want to sell something.

She's so strange.

"So the video you showed us, how did you get onto it? Was it one of those 'programs'?" Sasori asked, adding air quotes around 'programs'.

I hummed thoughtfully. "Sort of. Through a program called a browser, you can get on this amazing invention called the internet. Through the internet, you can access websites, and there are websites of just about anything you can think of. What my mum used to call it was 'the biggest book in the world', because you can find anything you need to know on there too. Anyway, the video you saw was on one called YouTube. It's pretty awesome."

Sasori nodded slowly. "So basically, you could find absolutely anything you could want on there?"

"Yep," I replied. "But everything you go on is recorded in the internet history, so no porn for you, Fluffy."

Deidara scowled at me and flipped me the bird.

"Wait, there's porn on there too?" Sasori questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Rule 34 of the internet: If it exists, there is porn of it, no exceptions," Mel recited.

"Interesting," Hidan drawled as he sauntered into the room like the cocky bastard he is. He flopped onto the sofa opposite us, followed soon by Kakuzu. The stitched man sat on the end of the same sofa, punching Hidan's leg to get him to shift it out of his way. "I might have to learn how to use that shit too then."

Since everyone had moved in for a couple of weeks now, the usual household habits and arrangements had started to rear their heads.

For example, there was an unspoken seating plan in the house. The couches belonged to whichever members of the Akatsuki that were in the room, and the beanbag and the armchair in the corner were mine. Matt usually just lurked in his room and only came out for food and cola, while Demi was either out or running around trying to annoy/flirt with everyone in sight. If she did end up in the front room, however, she'd just squeeze in on a sofa, usually next to Hidan or Kisame.

Melissa, being the weird one, owned the floor. Ever since she was little, she just preferred sitting and sleeping on the floor. Basically, whenever you walk into a room other than the bathroom and kitchen, you have to be careful you don't stand on a gadget herming (1) emo.

A few of the Akatsuki, namely Zetsu, Tobi at mealtimes, and Pein in the morning, choose to take up the kitchen for themselves instead.

The bedrooms weren't changed around, because Demi had decided that she'd camp out in the other front room instead of her bedroom, because apparently it 'had an easier route to the fridge and the toilet anyway'.

"So, is there any way I could learn how to use a computer?" Sasori asked, completely ignoring Hidan's comment about porn.

"Sure!" Mel grinned. "We can teach you! It might take a while though."

Sasori rolled his chocolate eyes. "Don't patronise me, I'll get the hang of it in no time, I'm not a child."

Hidan snickered. "Well you fucking look like one, puppet boy."

I'm honestly surprised that Hidan didn't spontaneously combust and turn into a puddle of swearing goo at the venom-filled glare he got from Sasori for that.

Poor bastard must have forgotten he looked like a teenager.

"At least I'm not a greasy-haired albino like you," The redhead growled.

"Ouch," I hissed, watching the argument like one would watch a tennis match.

Hidan's eyes narrowed as he sat up. "Listen here, you little pussy. I'm a fully grown, fucking _immortal_ man, and you're just a fucking kid with a man's mind. So if you want a fucking scrap, then bring it on, but I'm sure you don't want your prissy little face pounded into the dirt."

Sasori growled and was about to pounce on the Jashinist, but Deidara held him back.

"Okay, I'm certain I've said this before, but no fighting in the house, because I don't want blood on my carpet," I snapped. "If you want to fight, get your asses outside, and if not, calm the fuck down and shut up."

Both men quieted, but continued to glare evilly at each other. I could practically feel the vibes of hatred coming off of them.

Having enough of the suddenly tense atmosphere, I shook my head and stood up. "Whatever. I'm going outside for a bit of air anyway. See you guys later."

With that, I stepped over Mel and made my way into the kitchen, heading for the back door. I could feel her concerned gaze on me, but waved her off. Pein and Konan were sat at the kitchen table talking between themselves quietly, and they both voiced a quiet hello as I passed, which I returned with a warm smile.

A blast of chilly February air hit me as I opened the door, and I was greeted with the sound of panting, cursing, and other noises that indicated fighting.

Without even looking, I knew it was Kisame and Itachi who were sparring; they were the only ones who could actually be bothered to when the weather was as cold as it was that day.

I shut the back door and sat down on the patio to just enjoy the show.

There really isn't anything better than watching those two fight for two reasons:

One, I could rape Itachi with my eyes without him ever knowing.

Two, because the pair of them worked so perfectly in harmony, that there was no stopping and starting in their spars; they just fought fluidly and matched each other until one couldn't fight anymore. That person was usually Itachi, but that was understandable, with Kisame's stupid amount of stamina.

If I could ever beat Kisame in hand-to-hand combat, I would be one happy woman.

Suddenly, Kisame landed a solid kick to the gut, knocking the wind out of his partner and snapping me out of my perverted daydreams.

I winced. That had to have hurt.

"Okay, I think Itachi's dead enough now, Sharky, you can lay off him now," I called with a smirk.

Both men turned around at my shout, Itachi with an amused glint in his eye, while Kisame just grinned, showing off his sharp teeth.

"Ah, he was done a long time ago. He just didn't give up because of that stupid Uchiha pride he's got," the blue man taunted.

Itachi glared at him in return, still holding his stomach.

Seeing that, I decided to step in. "Itachi, I know you're going to want a rematch with him, but you aren't having one now. Get your butt over here and take a break. No arguing."

He rolled his eyes but obeyed me anyway, sitting down next to me with a sigh. He glanced at me. "Why do you always insist on us being careful? We train a lot more seriously when we're at the base."

"In case you hadn't noticed, there's no chakra here to heal anything, and I don't know how you would react to having our 'primitive' methods of healing applied to you," I replied, getting up. "So basically, it's for your own good, so don't whine."

"Fine," Itachi said, with a ghost of a smirk on his gorgeous face.

"So, Katie," Kisame began. "You up for a bit of one-on-one? You did say you were pretty good."

I shot him a flirtatious look. "That depends on what you mean by that."

He chuckled. "Don't say things like that, people will start to think you've turned into Demi."

"How do you know I haven't?" I retorted.

"Because you haven't attempted to rape Hidan yet," he deadpanned. "The worst thing you've done so far is constantly stare at Itachi."

Wait, he saw that? Oh fuck!

I spluttered and folded my arms across my chest. "I do not! You're clearly imagining things. Maybe you've been exposed to our insanity for too long."

"Then why are you blushing?" Kisame pointed out, snickering like crazy.

Damn, I thought he wouldn't notice that.

Busted.

I desperately tried to think of something that would make the blood rushing to my face go away, but to no avail.

Sighing, I gave up. "Okay, you caught me. But who can blame me? Itachi's possibly the hottest guy from your world, other than his brother and Deidara. Itachi just beats them to the top spot."

Said Uchiha did a double take. "Did you just say my _brother?_"

"Um, yes?" I replied sheepishly. I suddenly realised what I'd said. "Oh! Not the one you're thinking of, _fuck_ no, I mean Sasuke when he's older," I waved a hand dismissively. "The duck's ass hair did nothing for him."

Poor Itachi. He must have thought he was living with another pedophile for a moment. I doubt he'd want to be around another since the Orochimaru incident.

To him, his brother was still about fourteen, not the sixteen-year-old badass we know now.

Also, he didn't know that he was killed by that same sixteen-year-old.

"Whatever. Before you scare Itachi any more, do you want to fight or not?" Kisame asked.

I chuckled. "Sure."

Kisame gestured for me to come over, so I jogged my way to the end of the garden he was waiting at, stopping a few feet in front of him.

"Kisame, go easy on her," Itachi said from his spot on the patio.

"Don't worry about me, I've got better skills than this overgrown chunk of seafood," I grinned, crouching down into a ready stance.

"We'll see about that," Kisame replied, matching my grin with his own. "You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," I replied. "Bring it."

**(Third Person, I can't write fights in first person to save my life. *sweatdrop*)**

Kisame shot forward at her command, arm cocked and ready to deliver a punch to Katie's jaw. Knowing there was no chance in hell that she could block it without getting hurt anyway, the girl ducked and kicked out at his shin.

It collided with the bone with a sharp _smack_, but since Kisame was an experienced ninja, he took the blow like it was nothing, jumping back a couple of steps. Katie frowned and stood back up, clenching and unclenching her fists as she thought up a strategy.

Itachi watched this all with keen eyes, since he'd never seen any of the girls fight before. He just wished he could use his Sharingan and see the spar more closely.

Katie's face took on a completely different expression all of a sudden, and she stood a lot more confidently than she did previously. Kisame eyed her warily, waiting for her next move.

The red haired girl smirked and ran at the shark-like man. He fell into a defensive position, awaiting her attack. She pulled back her arm, much like Kisame had done before, but just as she should have thrown the punch to his face, she dropped down and sent a knee into his torso instead, just below his ribcage.

Katie let a satisfied grin show on her face as the wind rushed out of Kisame's lungs, before she noticed the same triumphant look in his eyes.

What she hadn't realised that the shinobi had actually followed Itachi's order.

He was going easy on her.

With a grunt, he swung a fist at Katie's surprised face, but she just about blocked it with a forearm before it connected. Unluckily for her, he'd been prepared for that, and kicked her directly in the side, eliciting a sharp gasp and a wince before the teenager hit the floor, hard.

Kisame's eyes widened. "Oh shit! I didn't mean to hit you that hard! Are you okay?"

Itachi stood up and was about to head over and see if the girl was alright, but as Kisame leaned over her curled up body, she cracked open a blue eye with a grin.

"Psyche."

Katie's foot shot up into the air and hit Kisame directly in the face. He fell backwards at the hit, clutching his nose, something which Itachi's eyes widened at. The redhead rolled over before getting to her feet, brushing herself off and rubbing her injured side gently.

She winced as she touched a particularly painful spot. "That shit's gonna leave a nasty bruise tomorrow."

"Not as much as this is, you bitch," Kisame grunted, moving his hand from his face to reveal a large reddish-purple mark in the centre of his blue face.

Katie scratched her head nervously. "Um, sorry?"

Kisame rolled his eyes with a small grimace. "Ah, don't worry about it, kid. I'll survive, I've had worse. Ninja, remember?"

"Good, because I'd feel mean if you died because of me," Katie replied, walking over to hug Kisame around the waist. He chuckled and patted her head.

"And you don't feel fucking mean every damn time you stab me in the fucking neck? I see how it fucking is, you biased slut."

The pair broke apart and turned to the source of Hidan's voice to see him, Kakuzu, Pein, Konan, Tobi and Zetsu had joined Itachi on the patio and were watching them with vaguely interested, surprised or amused expressions. Katie assumed that Sasori and Deidara had stayed behind with Melissa in the living room to start on their computer lessons, and she had no idea where Tobi and Zetsu had appeared from, and frankly, didn't care.

"Aw, if it makes you feel any better, I'll lie for you and say I always feel guilty afterwards," Katie said with a falsely apologetic grin.

"Sure you do," Kakuzu muttered, folding his arms. "That's why you sit around grinning crazily and giggling every time you see the stitches on his neck for hours afterwards."

"I didn't say I feel guilty for long. Difference, see?" the hoodie wearing teenager replied, raising a finger to make her point.

"You're such a sadist," Kisame chuckled, coming up behind Katie and starting to walk towards the spectators.

"And you aren't?" She scoffed, following him inside.

Kisame paused before grinning. "I never said that, did I?"

Katie laughed before latching herself onto his arm. "Now this is why I love you sometimes."

His grin grew as everyone filed inside again, the three leaders watching Katie's back intensely.

Unfortunately for them, they seemed to have forgotten Katie's abnormal ability to notice their eyes on her back...

**-x-**

"She must have quite the skills to be able to land a solid hit on Kisame, even in the weakened state he is in," 'Tobi' mused.

He, Pein and Konan were sat around the kitchen table, and had been for the rest of the hours it had been since the brief spar in the garden. They had been discussing ideas for a counter jutsu for the majority of the time, but more recently their conversations had diverted to the group of teenagers they were living with. Currently, the topic of the moment was Katie.

"Not necessarily," Pein argued, glancing at the masked man. "Katie tricked him beforehand, and to be perfectly honest, Kisame isn't the hardest member of the Akatsuki to decieve."

'Tobi' hummed lowly in acknowledgement. "True, but that's another thing entirely. She tricked him by using his feelings against him, which means that things could get a little more messy around here if we don't hurry up with a reversal of this damn jutsu."

Konan frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that Kisame is getting attached to her, and the rest of these brats too," he muttered, moving his mask a little to a more comfortable position. "The most worrying aspect of this, however, isn't Kisame's ties with them. It's the ones with... _stronger_ bonds."

"Stronger?" Pein echoed.

"Namely, Deidara, Hidan and Itachi. Deidara's moment with Melissa two weeks ago isn't uncommon knowledge, and I don't think it will be long before Itachi follows his example by the look of things. I've also overheard some idiotic 'plans' of Melissa and Demi's to speed up the development of that certain relationship," he said, scowling under his swirled mask. "Hidan isn't as bad as those two, he just seems to be very close to Katie in a platonic way, even with their complicated friendship. Clearly, Deidara also wants to advance his relationship with Melissa, but with her avoidance of talking about what happened between them, at least there will be a lesser chance of anything major happening between them for now."

"But what difference does their bonds with the girls make?" Konan asked. "The other members are all well aware that this situation is only temporary, so they will just have to accept that they won't be around forever and get on with their lives afterwards."

'Tobi' leaned forward onto the table and rested his chin on one palm, the other hand tapping the wooden surface in a fast rhythm. "The difference will be more obvious after. When one creates a bond like they have, it can sometimes take a while to move on, especially for people like us, who have not many relationships as it is. My main concern is that they won't concentrate on their missions afterwards."

Pein sighed and stood up, pushing his chair back under the table as he did so. "With the progress we've been making on a jutsu, we will have a lot more time to be worrying about petty things like this, so for now, let's just focus on a way home. I highly doubt that they will be distracted by these girls anyway, so don't make a big deal out of it."

"Alright. But if it does affect them, on your head be it," 'Tobi' narrowed his eyes threateningly. "And if I'm right, then you will be the one to suffer the consequences, understand?"

Pein swallowed and helped Konan out of her seat. "I understand, Madara-sama."

"Good. Now let's go back to the others in the front room, or they might suspect something of us," The secret leader replied.

The Ame ninjas nodded their heads. "Yes, Madara-sama."

Just as the trio started for the connecting door to the hallway, they narrowly missed catching a person who had been hiding in the shadows, listening to their conversation darting back upstairs with a thoughtful frown on their face.

**-x-**

(1) Herming: Most of you will probably already know this, but it kind of means completely glued to and obsessed with something, usually a game, gadget, or something equally as geeky. For example, I sat up all night (literally) on Saturday reading SasuNaru fanfiction, thus, I was herming yaoi.

_A/N: And so that concludes Chapter 11 of Paws._

_The leaders don't approve of the relationships that are slowly and steadily forming, and what will they do to try and stop them ruining Tobi's plans now? Who was the eavesdropper, and what will they do about what they overheard? Well you're going to wait for those answers, you impatient bastards._

_Anyway, I don't think I'm going to do another one of those review limits again until I actually have a chapter ready to be posted. However, it'd be awesome to end up with 60 reviews before next update, because, you know, you're all awesome and all._

_Um, in the fight with Kisame, Katie didn't win, they gave up because they both got injured, so don't think she's overpowered or something. Thanks :)_

_Wish I could've included more lurrvee, but alas, I had nowhere to put it. At least Itachi was being cute by showing he cared about Katie's safety in the fight. *shrugs*_

**Random Fact #10:** Demi's natural hair colour is a blondey-browny colour, but most people have forgotten since she began dying it at 13. She's been through untold different colours, from natural colours like blonde, brown and black, all the way to red, purple, and her current colour, blue. She wears glasses when she isn't outside the house, too.

**I'm going on holiday to Spain for 6 days on the 17th of July, so if I haven't updated by then, you know I'm not dead, just enjoying the sun in Barcelona :D**

**I'll try my best to though, but no promises.**

_Love you all ;D_

_-Ginge_


	12. Chapter Twelve: Beginnings

_A/N: Big chappie as a reward for waiting for my late ass._

_Hope you didn't miss me too much, my wonderful readers.3_

_I personally don't really like this chapter much, but there's more Demi, for those of you who missed her and her antics :)_

_Enjoy if you can._

Disclaimer: Too busy brooding and plotting revenge on Kishi's pwning, so I'm just accepting the fact that I don't own copyright of Naruto for now. However, never fear, I will try again, mwahaha...

-x-

(Third Person!)

Hidan glanced to his left when he heard a low hum come from the redhead standing next to him. "What's up with you, bitch?"

Katie paused in her reading of the specs (2) on back of an empty mobile phone box to reply. "I have the odd feeling that someone is plotting something."

"Someone probably is. It's pretty common for people to do that kind of shit, you know," Zetsu chipped in from another nearby isle, obviously listening to the conversation.

"Yeah, no shit," Katie deadpanned. "Seriously though, it's like whatever these plans are, they involve me somehow, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean. If I were you, I'd just fucking forget about it for now," The silver haired Jashinist said, patting Katie's back roughly.

She winced. "Hey, watch it. The aftermath of Kisame's kicks hurt like fuck when you're not a ninja."

Hidan gave her a pitying look.

"Hey Katie, I think I've got a good one," said shark called from a few metres away, waving a black box in the air.

"Alright, I'll be over now," the girl replied, putting her own box back onto the nearest shelf.

Before Katie had sent the Akatsuki on a hunt for their new mobiles, she'd made them all remember some features that were needed, a certain price range they had to fit, and told them to make sure there were enough in stock for the entire group of them. There had been a few suggestions before Kisame's, but none of them had fit the bill. Everyone was hoping this one was good enough because they had been milling around the cramped shop for the past 20 minutes, and it really was getting quite hot and crowded, especially with Tobi constantly tripping over the bags of clothing that were dotted around everyone's feet.

"Price-wise, £11.75 is pretty good," Katie said, inspecting the box Kisame had handed her. "Even with the cost of all of them put together it's still not high enough to make Kakuzu have a heart attack, so-"

A loud admiring gasp interrupted Katie's examination, and everyone turned to see Tobi standing in front of one of the displays, one hand slowly reaching out to touch the highly expensive mobile on the table.

Katie's eyes widened and she dropped the - thankfully empty - box before speeding over to the mask-wearing ninja, slamming her hand down in front of the phone, narrowly preventing Tobi from touching it.

"No, Tobi, don't touch things you don't know about without telling me first, okay?" Katie said. "You could break it, and then I'd be in deep shit."

Even through his mask, Katie knew that the man was pouting. "But Katie-chan, I want one of these phones! It's so _pretty~_"

"I know, Tobi, but this is an iPhone, and it's one of those phones that have all the unnecessary awesome stuff I was telling you about earlier," she explained. "If you want, I'll let you have a go on my iPod later if you agree to just have a normal phone, because it does basically everything an iPhone does anyway."

Instantly, Tobi perked up considerably. "Yay! Thank you Katie-chan!" he cheered, latching onto the surprised redhead in a bear hug.

Katie grinned awkwardly. _Worse mood swings than Demi, and more of an evil mastermind than Matt and me put together. God help me now._.. she thought, sweat dropping.

Once Tobi had released her and skipped away to God knows where, she turned to the Akatsuki with an exasperated expression. "How the fuck do you guys put up with him on missions?"

"I test my art on him if he annoys me, un," Deidara replied with a smirk. "That usually shuts him up for a while."

Katie snapped her fingers as she looked like she'd remembered something. "Oh yeah, they showed that on _Naruto_ once or twice. They were actually some of my favourite episodes."

"Really?" Kisame asked, grinning and flashing his shark-like teeth. "You sadist."

"I never said I wasn't," she pointed out. "And anyway, you're one to talk, Mr. 'it-doesn't-cut-it-shreds'."

Hidan and Deidara snickered while Kakuzu and Sasori just snorted. Itachi remained stoic, as usual, but if you looked closely enough, you might have been able to detect a hint of amusement in his coal black eyes.

"Hey, don't laugh! You're all not any better," she scoffed. "One of you is a pyro who blows people up for some creepy pleasure," Deidara tried to protest but she carried on. "Another likes to watch people slowly die via poisoning then turns them into life-size toys," Here Sasori growled. "Kakuzu rips people's hearts out while they're still alive, and I'm not even going to start explaining how sadistic Hidan is, because it would take me until my next birthday."

Zetsu popped up out of nowhere - as usual - and smirked. "She has a point. And before you start on how sadistic we are, we already know."

"At least we can agree that sadism is something we all have in common," Katie said, going back over to pick up the abandoned mobile box. "Anyway, this one has pretty much everything you'll need except Bluetooth," she paused. "Actually, never mind. Let's face it, nobody uses Bluetooth anymore anyway. It's like one of those things that just suddenly disappears from daily life."

She threw the box into the air with a flick of her wrist and caught it again several times as she walked to the checkout, the Akatsuki trailing behind, chatting amongst themselves.

Once Katie had forked over the cash to the deeply disturbed-looking cashier (3), she handed a bag with a phone in to each other person there, Kisame and Kakuzu with an extra one each for Pein and Konan. Grabbing her own few carrier bags, she ordered the criminals to do the same before exiting the store and heading for the nearest bus stop.

-x-

(Still Third Person!)

"So, what have you three shits been doing while we were gone?"

Katie's greetings generally weren't very pleasant, so the mentioned trio of teenagers barely flinched at the first sentence that came from the girl's mouth as she entered the house.

"Hey Katie," Melissa replied, her eyes still glued to her laptop. "Not much, just stupid shit. Did you get the stuff?"

The redhead let out a short laugh as she dropped the three bags she had been carrying onto the floor before flopping into her beanbag. "You sound like we were doing a drug deal, but yeah, we got everything."

At that point, Demi walked into the living room with a cup of coffee in her hands. "I hope the clothes were all very revealing."

"As if I would allow my criminals to walk around in anything revealing," Katie scoffed. "I'm not having them look like a group of gay strippers."

The bluenette smirked. "Liar. But actually, they'd all look gorgeous in anything, even a fucking binbag. You know what, we should totally rename them the Akatsexy instead."

"No."

Everyone looked up to see Matt lurking in the chair in the corner, still concentrating on the game in his hands.

"Huh, I didn't even notice you there. Seems like you're so boring that you just blend into the furniture now," Katie chuckled, opening a bottle of Coke she had pulled from one of her bags. "You'd all better take note, or you migh-"

"Katie, you have been in the house for two minutes and you're already arguing," Mel snapped. "I am trying to watch Fairy Tail, so can you not."

"Wow, sorry," Katie muttered, taking another swig. "Remind me not to mess with Mel when she's on her period."

"I am not on my period!" she gasped, mortified.

"Seems like I need to have a serious word with Deidara then," Demi snickered, fist bumping Katie, who wore a matching grin on her own face.

"Agh! I am so done with you two!"

With that, Mel snatched up her laptop and stormed upstairs, leaving behind two cackling girls, and one fuming cave troll in her wake.

He watched the two as they chatted, and was internally smirking. He had heard the Leaders' conversation. He knew that their happy days would soon be over, and it wouldn't be long before he would be the only one left to comfort Melissa when the other two would be pre-occupied with their own sorrow.

Little did they know that no matter what, Matt was always right. And he always, _always,_ got his own way.

-x-

_A/N: So my serious editing began here. Previous readers will notice I cut literally 3,000 words from it, so apologies, but it will be worth it, promise._

_All notices and shit will now be put down here, and uber important ones will be in bold italic, like so:_

_Uber important shit! I have two notices here. One is a reply to someone on , and you'll probably be wondering why too. She asked me why I mentioned a sequel/threequel so early in the first story (yes, it's still early, guessing about 1/4 or 1/3 through), and basically it's because events that happen now and in the sequel will affect the threequel, because I plan so far ahead. You might not notice it yet, but actually there is a fuckload of foreshadowing in here._

Random Fact #11: I honestly only included Demi in this as an afterthought and for shits and giggles, but she will actually play a major part in the conclusion of this story, and I couldn't end it properly without her :)

Question of the Chapter:Who is your favourite OC of mine, and why?

_Thanks for reading and all of your support, and I hope this chapter didn't disappoint you too much. :)_


	13. NOTICE (03 JAN 13)

_(Everything in bold is the updated note)_

**Hey guys, Happy (late) New Year!**

**I feel like such a massive shitbag for leaving you all in the dark for so long, wow.**

**I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and if you don't celebrate it, then I hope you had a nice holiday, lol.**

**I thought I'd give this note an update since the people reading my fanfics have probably thought I just dropped off the face of the earth or died or something. Obviously I haven't, I've just been stuck at a huge, HUGE, block. (and I've been distracted by tumblr, oops)**

**I'm slowly getting better, for anyone wondering, and all of your supportive messages to me was a huge boost, so thank you so much, all of you. You don't know how much it means to me to know that people do care.**

**Anyway.**

**Sadly, I started this fic with no preparation and just a basic idea, so everything so far was all muddled and strange. My writing style isn't perfect, and the details and plot were very confusing. Thanks to this, I decided to do a rewrite. I have been doing so, and I'm about to replace every chapter that needs to be rewritten with a notice so I don't lose any reviews from it being deleted, etc. **

**I think it starts at either Chapter 6 or Chapter 10, I'm not sure. I need to read through it again to make sure, since I haven't done so in months.**

**So what's going to be changed in the next update?**

**- Itachi and Katie's relationship. It feels like a chore to write about them now, and I keep making Itachi really OOC without realising. GITUP was a complete flop for me, and my ideas were just a load of shit. Basically, it is now being removed from the fanfic. There will be no more relationships formed other than the resolution of the ones already hinted at.**

**- Just little edits. I don't have a beta so I thought it would be helpful for me to re-read stuff. I also have a few of my friends helping me now, so it should be a lot cleaner.**

**- Probably some more, but you'll have to wait and see!**

**So yeah, it's possible you'll have your email inbox fucked by all my updates soon, lol.**

**Apologies for the inconvenience, but hopefully I will be back on track by the end of the month!**

**Bye guys! 3 x**

_**P.S: If anyone's on Tumblr, did you see the shipping war that happened from the most recent chapter? It was fucking hilarious, I'm telling you now. **_

_**P.P.S: If anyone's on Tumblr, follow me? ^-^ Link is on my profile**_

_**P.P.P.S: I didn't win the Wattys for anyone wondering, lol. I got a couple votes though, and that's what counts. I had no chance anyway since I was up against some of the most popular fics on the site hahaha**_

* * *

><p>Hi guys :}<p>

So it's been quite a while since you've heard from me, right?

Well yeah, I have good reasons for that, and don't worry, this note isn't all doom and gloom; there's a good side to this too :')

Basically, as of Tuesday 4th of September, I officially started my GCSE's.

If you're foreign, go google it if you have no idea, effort to explain it all.

Annoying how I have to take 12 subjects and am expected to get a minimum B in everything, and most of my younger teachers only took 8 and probably got A maximum. Hypocritical bastards.

Anyway, it's basically a massive jump in workload, and I had a shit ton before I started this year, so I'm sure you can imagine how crazy it is now. Like seriously, some guy I know calls it the 'Nazi School'. :L

Honestly, I get about 15 homeworks a week. ._.

So basically, I've decided that for my sake and for yours, this story is going on hold until I have a five chapter lead at the least, and then I'll update once a week or so.

I'm honestly so, so sorry, and I know how shit it is to have someone hold a story. However, I'm sure that you'll appreciate it in the long run, as I'll be having more regular updates and shit.

One final reason is this. School has really been getting on top of me, but actually for the past, idk, 6 months or so, I've been pretty depressed. And I don't mean 'oh I feel crap lulz, I'm so totes fat n shit', I mean more like it's bad enough to have two friends of mine who have (one suspected, one confirmed and being treated) pretty severe depression tell me to get help from a counsellor or something.

To be perfectly honest, I was thinking about suicide on a daily basis for a month or so of that too.

Yeah, nasty stuff gaiz.

But it's getting better at the moment, so don't panic! I'm fine! (^-^)"

So anyway, I'm not sure how long it will take me to get caught up and stuff, but I promise you, this story isn't over just yet. I have too many plans for it, and I adore this series and its fans far too much to discontinue it, so don't freak out. 3

Like I have the sequel and threequel planned out to the finest details, and I've even stuck in some major plot twist no jutsus for teh lulz.

**Finally, I thought I'd let you know that Chapter 14 is still in progress, and I have it at about 2,000 words. If I get enough requests, I'll post it where it is now and then hold it...?**

Again, I'm so sorry. :(

See you very soon,

_- Ginge x_

**P.S: I LIKE TOTALLY ENTERED THIS IN THE NARUTO WATTY AWARDS AND SHIT**

**SO LIKE, VOTING FOR PAWS WOULD TOTALLY MAKE MY FUCKING LIFE OMG**

**Basically, all you have to do is go find NarutoWattyAwards, click on the Akatsuki section of their 'story', and you know, comment with your vote for moi.**

_**PLEASE VOTE ONLY BETWEEN NOVEMBER 1ST AND DECEMBER 28TH!**_

**It would be much, much appreciated, and you never know, it might give me some motivation to get writing 3**

** story/2158665-vote-here-closed**

**^ El linko anyway~ ^**

**Thank you :)**


	14. GOOD NEWS! (Another absence note sorry!)

So I'm guessing a lot of you guys thought I either

a.) Died

b.) Disappeared from the internet

c.) Abandoned my fanfics

Well to clear up confusion, I've done none of the above. I'm just extremely busy and I have no time or motivation for writing.

I am officially on** semi-hiatus,** and I've abandoned Forever Falling and DOTS (omg cool acronym wooow).

However, Paws is still ongoing.

For a quick update, today is the first time I've really gotten into my writing in a while. I've written three chapters in total, two from the second book (which will be called Catnip, for anyone wondering) and one from the third. (Untangled). I've also gotten about 1,000 words for Chapter 13 of this, so yeah. I also have about three backup filler chapters in case I fade out again.

Hopefully I can get back into this, since I have my motivation in the fact that I have so many ideas to write out, and I'm only letting myself start a new fanfic once this is done, lol.

**Also in terms of editing, I've put little check marks like so (x) next to chapter names where serious editing has happened. This is between C6-10, but 10 has like 3,000 words cut out so yeah. Please go re-read them to help you understand the new direction of the story lol.**

If anyone wants updates in real time, please just follow me on tumblr or add me on skype to nag me.

My url is orochimoomoo dot tumblr dot com, and my skype is just orochimoomoo.

**If anyone wants me to post one of the fillers tonight while I finish up C13, just tell me in a comment. The one I'm thinking of is pretty funny, and I can always replace a later chapter with it if it makes no sense here. c:**

Thanks everyone for sticking with me. I'm an unreliable asshole, but soon enough I should be a little better (I hope).

I love you! 3


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